


Anything to make you smile

by Oywiththepoodlesalready



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - No Hale Fire, Everyone Is Alive, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-11
Updated: 2014-04-16
Packaged: 2018-01-15 09:07:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 38,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1299349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oywiththepoodlesalready/pseuds/Oywiththepoodlesalready
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Derek gets a new roommate whose best friend takes to practically living on their couch pretty quickly.<br/>Which wouldn't be a problem except for the fact that said best friend is the same guy who's been holding Derek's table at the library hostage for the better part of a month.<br/>And, oh yeah, there's also this thing where Derek might maybe be the tiniest bit in love with him.<br/>Easy peasy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "No one's gonna love you" by Band of Horses.

_Life isn't fair._

It's a concept Derek Hale feels he has, at 27, become quite intimately acquainted with in his lifetime, and yet:

It's only been two months since the start of the semester and already he feels like the universe is hell-bent on making his life as miserable as possible – because not only did his long-time best friend and roommate Boyd leave him to go live in sin with his fiancee; not only did he have to interview a whole slew of pretentious douche bags to fill his void; not only did the one he decided would be the least probable to make him want to kill himself turn out to be the most happy-go-lucky person in the entire history of the universe – no: of course his best friend had to be the one person with the potential to make Derek go absolutely stark raving mad.

Nope. Not fair at all.

 

* * *

 

It's Sunday morning and Derek is sitting at their tiny kitchen table in his boxers and a ratty old shirt eating cornflakes when he walks in the first time: disheveled hair and a slightly scruffy jaw, in sweatpants that hang low on his hips and with one hand scratching his belly under the shirt, exposing a sliver of pale skin with a smattering of moles above his right hipbone.

Derek chokes on his milk.

The new guy looks up with a start and Derek would have probably enjoyed the way his cheeks flood with color in a span of mere seconds if he weren't so focused on not covering the table with half-eaten bits of cornflakes.

“Uh, sorry, didn't mean to startle you there”, the guy says, rubbing his neck. “I'm guessing you're...Derek?”

Derek wipes the back of his hand across his mouth and clears his throat.

“Yeah”, he mutters, voice slightly croaky. “And you are?”

“Oh. Call me Stiles.”

He flashes Derek a quick grin before turning his back and starting to rummage through the kitchen drawers.

Derek takes the opportunity to rub a hand across his eyes and make sure he's not still half-dreaming, because there's no way that this is his life.

There's no way that the same guy who stole his table at the library over a month ago, the guy he's been not so subtly watching for weeks instead of focusing on his history paper, the guy he might maybe have the tiniest crush in the history of crushes on – is standing here, in his kitchen, in clothes he very obviously slept in _in Scott's room_ , looking through his drawers like he belongs here.

There's a cry of triumph from where Stiles is crouched under the sink and he turns around, brandishing a box of fruit loops and grinning like a maniac.

“I knew it! God, Scotty, I love how predictable you are”, he crows and plops himself down in the seat across from Derek, happily pouring a generous amount of fruit loops into a bowl he produced from out of thin air and digging in immediately. It's only after a few minutes of stunned silence on Derek's part that Stiles comes up for air, cheeks flushed slightly pink and an apologetic smile on his lips.

“Sorry, you want some?” he mumbles around the food in his mouth and tips his bowl so Derek can see the mushed up bits of fruit loops floating around in the milk.

It's kind of gross. Derek should probably stop staring.

“Thanks, 'm good here.”

Stiles shrugs his shoulders and goes back to merrily slurping milk off his spoon. “Suit yourself.”

There's a few minutes of relative silence where Derek takes in the curve of Stiles' nose and the slope of his shoulders that he's become intimately familiar with over his past weeks as creeper extraordinaire. The thought makes his skin itch uncomfortably and he decides awkward conversation is probably a lot less likely to get him arrested than intent staring.

“So...Stiles. That's an unusual name”, he ventures and thinks he manages quite well to hide the cringe at how stilted he sounds.

Stiles doesn't seem to notice, though, and chuckles good-naturedly.

“If you're ever unlucky enough to come across my real first name, I guarantee you'll feel very differently”, he says and winks at Derek.

It's way too early for him to be dealing with this.

He can feel heat crawling up his neck, but soldiers on. “That bad, huh?”

“Worse. You wouldn't believe me if I told you. Which is why I won't”, Stiles answers, flashing Derek a grin that shows straight white teeth.

Derek snorts and holds up both hands in surrender. “Fair enough. Stiles it is then.”

Stiles bobs his head in agreement and keeps munching on his cereal.

“So...”, Derek starts, awkwardly clearing his throat, “I thought Scott had...a girlfriend? A-...something? Alice?Anna...?”

Stiles blinks at him and nods slightly. “Allison, actually.”

“Right. Is that still going on?”

“Oh yeah”, Stiles concurs enthusiastically, “Still going strong. I'll tell you, I really wouldn't be surprised if I hear wedding bells in the not-so-distant future. In fact, I've already started collecting jokes and stories and stuff about Scott for my best man speech, just to be on the safe side, so if you have any dirt on him – you gotta tell me, alright?”

Derek blinks. He's pretty sure he's missing a vital piece of information in all this.

“So...you...”, Derek starts and he can practically feel his eyebrows knitting together of their own accord and makes a conscious effort to smooth out his forehead in order to be less judgy-looking, “Are you...is this some kind of polyamory situation or...what?”

Stiles blinks at him for a moment and then his face goes beet-red as realization flashes across his face. Derek bites his tongue and thinks he should never be allowed to talk to people who make him lose whatever tiny amount of cool he has.

“What?!”, Stiles splutters, “Me and Scott? Ew, gross, no way!”

“Sorry, I didn't mean to offend...”, Derek starts, scrambling for a way to rectify his presumptuousness, but Stiles waves a hand in the air between them to stop him.

“No, no, there's no need to apologize, it's not...the _guy_ thing. It's the _Scott_ thing. Seriously, like, I knew him way back in the day when he was still trying to get a handle on bladder control and was peeing his pants every time he sneezed. Believe me, our relationship is like the definition of platonic”, Stiles says and shrugs his shoulders, grinning. “But that's just because there's not a lot of sexiness left if you've made it through kindergarten and puberty together, not because Scott pees standing up.”

And Derek knows that his ears are probably flaming red at the moment, but he can't really find it in himself to care too much, because isn't that an interesting tidbit of information?

And it's really not fair that Stiles looks completely relaxed, a small smile playing on his lips and one eyebrow quirked at Derek - how is he supposed to concentrate on stringing together a coherent response when he's being looked at like that?

It's a good thing Scott chooses that exact moment to make an appearance, sauntering into the room with an abnormal amount of energy for someone who just woke up and clapping a hand on Stiles' shoulder.

“There he is! Apple of my eye, best friend extraordinaire, my love, my one and only, Scott McCall, Ladies and Gentlemen!”, Stiles cheers, mouth spread wide in a blinding grin. It's probably a good thing for everybody in the room that he's finally finished eating.

Scott rolls his eyes and ruffles Stiles' hair affectionately.

“Yeah, yeah. So I see you two have -...”, Scott stops abruptly, eyes bugging as he takes in the breakfast table, “Dude! Where did you get those?!”

Scott points an accusing finger at the half-empty box of fruit loops and then pulls a disappointed face at Stiles, who at least has the decency to look somewhat contrite.

“What do you think? From under the sink, where you keep them in a bucket with the rest of your cleaning supplies – and really, Scott, I gotta tell you: not the safest place for hiding things you plan on _eating_ afterwards...Mama McCall would be appalled”, he finishes, a cheeky smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

Scott gapes at him, hands on his hips in a great display of rightful indignation and Derek has to admit: it's been a long time since breakfast has been this entertaining.

“Duuude”, Scott whines, “that was my secret emergency stash!”

“Who are you even hiding this from?” Stiles demands and points a thumb in Derek's direction. “Derek here doesn't look like he eats a lot of sugary cereal... - ”

“I don't.”

“ - ...and you should know better than to hide things in _my_ hiding spots if you don't want me to find them.”

He turns to Derek then and cups a hand around his mouth, whispering conspiratorially: “I used to help him find the best hiding spots back home for his...manly magazines if you know what I mean.”

Scott buries his face in his hands with a strangled groan while Stiles waggles his eyebrows exaggeratedly and Derek thinks he should probably be very, very afraid.

 

* * *

Three days later, Derek is once again back in the business of fully living up to his creeper status, hiding behind a dying plant on the second floor of the university library. And if that hadn't been proof enough that telling Erica had been a very bad idea, the fact that she has been draped across his back for the last few minutes, spying through the leaves and effectively cutting off his air supply, most definitely is.

“Is that him?” Erica asks from where she's been breathing down his neck and points a finger into his line of sight to where Stiles is sitting alone at a table crammed into the corner between History of the Middle Ages and American Gothic Literature, an equal distance from both the restrooms and the vending machines, with a window above and his very own power outlet.

Derek sighs and straightens up abruptly, effectively getting Erica off his back.

“Yes.”

“Well then...go!”, she tells him and makes a shooing motion in Stiles' direction and because Derek knows disagreeing will only delay the inevitable, he sighs deeply and trudges off towards Stiles' table.

“You're in my seat”, he announces once he's within ear-shot.

Stiles jumps and blinks up at Derek, disoriented for a second until a flash of recognition crosses his features and he relaxes in his seat.

“Hey there. Fancy meeting you again”, he grins, leaning back in his chair.

“Yes. You're in my seat”, Derek repeats.

“Uhm, sorry, dude. I'm pretty sure this is the same spot I've been sitting in for the last month, so...I don't think so.”

The perpetual smirk on Stiles' face makes Derek's resolve start to crumble. Very _very_ bad idea.

“It was my spot before you...stole it from me.”

Stiles looks slightly surprised, in an elated kind of way, his eyes sparkling and his lips spread wide in a grin.

“Yeah, he's been sitting in this dingy little corner for like five months before you came along”, a voice pipes up from behind him.

Of course. What a rooky mistake, believing Erica when she said she would stay in the background.

Stiles seems to be almost vibrating with glee. “Seriously, dude, you brought back-up? This is so awesome!”

“She followed me”, Derek grunts and shoots Erica a dirty look.

“Pfft. I've been telling him for months he should just confront that little table-thief; there's no way in hell I'm missing this”, she retorts and sticks out her tongue at Derek.

“Table-thief, really?”, Stiles chuckles. “Sorry, guys, I've actually gotten quite attached to this seat. Believe it or not, it has the perfect imprint for my butt - _so comfy._ ”

He wiggles around on his seat a little in demonstration and Derek feels his face heat up.

“That's because it's mine”, he grits out and tries to ignore the snort from Erica, instead focusing on the way Stiles' eyes water as he chokes on his own laughter.

There's a twinkle in his eye and Derek can feel the corner of his mouth tug up involuntarily at the sight of it.

“Well then, I feel like we're kind of at a stand-off here”, Stiles says without taking his eyes off Derek's.

Derek inclines his head slightly in acquiescence and crosses his arms across his chest, his eyes never leaving Stiles'.

“Ugh, this is a lot less dramatic than I imagined”, Erica complains from over his shoulder. “Seriously, a staring contest? That's your whole battle plan?”

Stiles lifts one shoulder in a half-shrug. “Table's big enough for two...we could probably share.”

“Only if you keep to your side. And I want my chair back.”

“Nuh-uh, the butt-print's non-negotiable, sorry buddy.”

Derek throws his arms in the air, huffing exasperatedly.

“Fine”, he growls, holding his hand out across the table. “We have a deal?”

“ _God_ , you guys are pathetic. I _cannot_ believe I blew off my mani-pedi for this...”, Erica huffs behind them and stalks off aggressively to which Stiles raises an amused eyebrow and takes the hand Derek offered him.

 

* * *

 

Stiles is not there when Derek gets to the library the next day and he's not entirely sure how he feels about that.

It's 8.30 on a Thursday morning and the library is fairly empty and quiet. Soon enough, he's deep into his essay on the history of medieval warfare, making good progress when someone plops down into the seat opposite him.

He looks up to see Stiles sitting across the table, three takeaway cups in front of him.

“So,” he starts, rubbing his hands together, “I wanted to bring you coffee for misusing your butt-print for my own personal pleasure, but I realized I have no idea how you like yours, so I kinda got one of every...direction? I've got one black, one cappuccino and some caramel-flavored concoction with lots of whipped cream...pick whatever you want and I'm just gonna drink whatever's left.”

Derek eyes the coffee cups on the table, weighing his options. The smell of caramel syrup wafts across the table and makes his mouth water.

“Well in that case, I think I'm gonna pick...”, Derek starts and narrows his eyes, making a show of having a hard time to decide, “... _all of them_. Thank you so much, Stiles, that's very generous of you.”

And he flashes Stiles a big grin before using both hands to slide all three cups over to his side of the table.

“Wha -...I -...But...coffeeee!”, Stiles whines, making grabby hands at Derek.

Derek pops off the lids and makes a big show of sniffing experimentally at each of the cups. He hums thoughtfully and bites his tongue to stop from grinning at the indignant huff from Stiles.

“Come on, just give me the black one, I know you want to pick the sugar bomb anyway. I promise I won't laugh. Much.”

Derek looks up to see Stiles smirking at him and frowns.

“So I have a bit of a sweet tooth occasionally. So what?” he asks loftily, pulling the caramel coffee closer and taking an experimental sip. It's almost cloyingly sweet and he closes his eyes to savor it and hums appreciatively, sliding the other cups back over to Stiles.

Stiles, who gapes at him with his mouth half-open and his ears flushed slightly pink.

“God, look at you, you're so...”, he starts in a gushing tone.

Derek points a warning finger at him. “Don't you dare!”

Stiles holds up both hands in a silent peace offering and bites his lip, eyes sparkling.

“Manly. I was gonna say manly.”

 

* * *

 

After that, it's easy.

They never make plans to meet up at the library, but more often than not they end up there anyway, some days only throwing in a quick hello as they pass each other in the hallway and some days sharing their table for hours on end while they each work on their respective essays.

They develop a sort of unspoken routine; Derek picking up a couple of donuts at the shop around the corner from his apartment and Stiles bringing coffee when he comes in later in the morning. It's a good system, Derek thinks. At least this way, if it turns out to be a Stiles-free day, he'll get a couple more sugary treats all to himself to even it out a little bit.

It's probably not the most work-efficient arrangement, what with all the coffee breaks and the occasional balled up notes that Stiles likes to throw at Derek's head, but to be fair, having Stiles a mere foot away is not as counter-productive as Derek would have thought. Sure, he's as distracting as any one person could be to Derek, but he managed that easily from across the room as well, and there's something about the way Stiles scrunches up his nose in concentration when proof-reading Derek's finished paragraphs that makes him want to push himself in an as-yet unparalleled burst of motivation.

 

It's a few weeks later when, after a long day of staring at the top of the library staircase and eating all four donuts on his own, he gets home to Stiles and Scott having a pillow fight on the couch in their living room.

“Hey Derek”, Stiles chimes as soon as he catches sight of Derek standing in the doorway and seizes the opportunity of Scott waving at Derek over his shoulder to throw him off balance and onto the floor. “We're having a slumber party, you're welcome to join!”

Derek leans against the doorjamb in what he hopes is a casual gesture and lifts a skeptical eyebrow. “Aren't you a little old for slumber parties?”

“Aren't you a little young for all that old-mannish grumpiness?”, Stiles retorts with a challenging eyebrow-raise and extends a helping hand to a grumbling Scott on the floor. “Besides, Lydia's back from her extended Italy-trip – and I have to say, I'm still very concerned there might have been illegal methods involved in convincing her professors to give her time off in the middle of the semester...- so I've been _indefinitely sexiled_ , to quote Jackson directly. So, get your PJs on and join the fun!”

“I don't own Pjs”, Derek deadpans, but he pushes himself off of the doorjamb and moves closer to the couch, where he can see that the two are indeed wearing pajamas – or at least pajama bottoms, traditional blue plaid for Scott and Batman print for Stiles, paired with plain old shirts.

“Oh. Okay”, Stiles says, face still slightly flushed from the exertion of their pillow fight. “Well, we don't discriminate here, so...if you prefer to _not wear_ PJs at slumber parties, that's totally fine with us, right Scotty?”

Scott makes a sort of uncomfortable whining noise. “No, dude, totally not fine. Clothing mandatory.”

Derek feels this is probably the point where he should try making his escape before he starts picturing the mentioned scenario too vividly, but he's distracted by Stiles punching Scott on the arm and turning to Derek.

“Don't listen to him, man. Just come on, we're watching Star Wars. Scott's never seen it before, it's gonna be epic.”

Derek is mildly intrigued. “Which one?”

“We're at Return of the Jedi. Scott, come on, tell Uncle Derek what you're most looking forward to in this one...”

“You make me sound like a little girl if you say it like that...”, Scott sulks.

Stiles snorts and pokes him in the ribs, making Scott giggle and swat at his hand. “Come ooon, Derek's not gonna laugh, he cries at Titanic.”

“Thanks, Stiles, your discretion is very much appreciated”, Derek grumbles and rolls his eyes at the tongue Stiles sticks out at him.

“Just, you know, obviously defeating Vader and rescuing Han Solo and stuff...”, Scott mumbles.

“Aaand...?”

“And...I've kinda been waiting a long time for Luke and Leia to finally get it on, so...”, Scott admits grudgingly to which Stiles does an exaggerated fist-pump.

“See?! It's going to be _hilarious_!”, he crows, basically doubled over with laughter. “Dude, you can't miss this!”

Derek has to admit, his enthusiasm is kind of infectious.

“You keep saying that...it's freaking me out”, Scott whines and crosses his arms over his chest, pouting.

“It's alright, Scotty...I'm just very excited to see you bask in the glory of their undying love for each other for the first time. It's going to be beautiful”, Stiles assures Scott, patting his arm with one hand and flashing Derek a big thumbs-up behind Scott's back with the other.

Derek snorts, shaking his head at their antics while trying to calculate how much sleep he could still get in before his early morning class if he joins them.

“Derek, you have to watch, come on”, Stiles says with finality and scoots into the middle of the couch, patting the (too-small) space he freed up for Derek on the couch beside him and batting his eyes at him.

Well, who needs sleep anyway.

 

It's a tight fit; so tight that they end up pressed together from hip to knee and the feeling of Stiles' body-heat seeping through his jeans makes Derek start to sweat slightly. He throws a quick glance to his left, but Stiles doesn't seem to notice anything out of the ordinary, already engaged in discussion with Scott again. Derek decided it's probably for the best not to draw attention to the situation by moving his leg away and settles deeper into the cushions to watch the movie, knee still tightly pressed against Stiles'.

 

About halfway through the movie, it becomes clear that even though Derek loves Star Wars like the closet nerd that he is, that doesn't change the fact that he can practically recite the movie word by word and he's had a long day revising his paper, so by the time the crucial scene rolls around, he keeps nodding off onto Stile's shoulder every few minutes. He has just started to weigh the merits of getting to sleep in an actual bed against never having to move, when a hand lands on his knee and jolts him out of his slumber.

He's slightly dazed and disoriented, so for a second he's confused as to why Stiles has his knee in a vice grip, but a glance at the TV gets him up to speed fairly quickly.

“What?! Nooo!” Scott shrieks from across the couch and Stiles starts shaking violently next to him. “You could have warned me!”

“And miss this? No way!”, Stiles chortles.

“But...I thought Luke and Leia were the obvious choice! They're so much closer in age!”

There's a violent snort of laughter from Stiles that quickly turns into hiccups and he's squeezing Derek's knee even harder, effectively cutting off all circulation. It's starting of hurt, but in his current state of sleep-deprived haze, Derek thinks he would rather risk losing a limb than being the one to pry Stiles' hand away from his leg.

“That's because they're _TWINS_!”, Stiles shrieks. “That's the whole joke!”

Then there's an angry grunt from Scott and a woosh of air and Stiles' hand leaves Derek as he's ducking from a pillow that, as a result, smacks Derek right in the face.

“You bastard!” Scott shouts and grabs for another pillow and the next second, Stiles is scrambling across Derek's lap to the other side and he's being used as a human shield in their petty little pillow fight.

 

He finds he doesn't mind nearly as much as he probably should.

 

* * *

 

Stiles sleeps on the couch that night and the next night as well and before long, him sleeping over at Scott and Derek's place has become almost like a regular occurrence.

It's not just being “sexiled”, as Stiles so eloquently put it that night, it's also that while Stiles absolutely adores Lydia, he _tolerates_ his roommate Jackson at best and often chooses to spend his free time as far away from their tiny little dormroom as possible.

Their dorm also happens to be way across town, so any late night shenanigans more often than not lead to Stiles opting to crash in the far more centrally located apartment.

Soon enough there's a blanket and pillow piled onto the couch permanently and if that means Derek has to put on sweatpants before trudging into the kitchen in the mornings, well, that's a sacrifice he will just have to learn to live with.

 

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: I had almost the exact same Star Wars-conversation with a friend of mine a few weeks ago. He had just watched the first two movies and told me he thought Luke and Leia would get together because they're "so much closer in age" and I nearly fell off my chair laughing :D
> 
> Also, I honestly love hearing from you guys (and it's the biggest motivator of all), so if there's anything you liked or didn't like, please tell me!  
> Thanks for reading! :)


	2. Chapter 2

Derek is smack in the middle of trying to formulate the closing statement on his paper when something nudges his foot. He doesn't look up immediately in fear of losing his train of thought and the nudging gets more persistent, the wool of a socked foot scratching at the small sliver of skin that's exposed where Derek's jeans are riding up a bit. He feels a smirk tugging at his lips and hastens to finish typing his sentence.

Stiles does this sometimes now; nudging Derek's shin or catching his ankle between his socked feet to catch Derek's attention in a place where hissing or whistling is highly frowned upon and Derek can't say he minds very much.

As soon as he's finished typing, Derek looks up with a look of fond exasperation on his face and mouths _What?_ across the table. Stiles mimics a drinking motion with his hands and raises an expectant eyebrow to which Derek gives a distracted nod, his mind already back on his writing.

After what feels like seconds, Stiles is back in his seat and sliding a paper cup across the table. Only now does it occur to Derek that he never took the time to specify what he would like to drink and feels a little bad for making Stiles decide.

He pops open the lid of his cup and stifles a sigh as he sees that it's plain coffee with a splash of milk. Great. Maybe he should have stopped hiding his stash of sugar packets at some point in their acquaintance and told Stiles that he doesn't actually like coffee that much unless there's enough sugar in it to effectively conceal any association there ever was with coffee to begin with. But, in his defense, there are probably easier things to explain to someone you're maybe, a tiny bit, actively trying to impress.

He schools his expression into one of careful indifference and takes an experimental sip.

Much to his dismay, he can't help the completely embarrassing sound of surprise that escapes him as he realizes this coffee tastes almost exactly like it would had Derek made it himself.

Which is precisely the moment a packet of sugar hits him smack in the middle of his forehead and thuds to the tabletop in front of him.

He shoots Stiles a dark look and gets a smug smirk in return.

As he goes to pick up the sugar packet (in order to dispose of it, obviously, not _throw it back_ like a third-grader), he notices there's something scribbled on the front of it.

 

_I took a sip and it was disgustingly sweet – so I knew it would be just perfect for you._

_Weirdo._

 

Derek can feel heat creeping up his neck at the implications, at the thought that Stiles knows just how he likes his coffee _without Derek ever telling him_ and he knows that his ears are just mere seconds away from turning flaming red.

So he does the only thing he can think of in the moment: he handles the situation like the mature adult that he is and makes a big show of wiping the back of his hand across his mouth and throwing Stiles a disgusted look.

It earns him a kick in the shin and Stiles flipping him the bird.

 

* * *

 

“ _Yes_ , damn-it, take that, Derek! God, you really weren't kidding when you said you're not very good at this, were you? This is pathetic!” Stiles preens, taking a hand off his controller to quickly push the glasses that have been slowly sliding down his nose for the past couple of minutes back up.

Derek can't help but track the movement with his eyes. It's the first time he's ever seen Stiles wear glasses, because as he had put it, all flustered and blushing under Derek's scrutiny: they only come out _when desperate times call for desperate measures_.

Which apparently, for Stiles, translates to trashing Derek at video games.

And Derek is the first one to admit that he doesn't know shit about any of that stuff (and he'd really like to use the “growing up with sisters”-excuse for that, but truth is: Laura could probably beat Stiles with one hand tied behind her back anytime), but damn-it, those glasses are distracting.

“Yes, I really regret having sex in high school instead of doing...that”, Derek deadpans.

Stiles gives an affronted squeak and elbows Derek in the ribs. “Hey! That's not fair! I did have sex … eventually.”

“Sure you did”, Derek answers placatingly, just because he knows it'll rile Stiles up.

Sure enough, Stiles huffs an offended sigh and mutters “I hate you, man”, before sinking deeper into the couch cushions and proceeding to defeat Derek with renewed vigor.

They play in silence for a while, Derek's mind more on whether Scott remembered to get him extra pepperoni on his pizza than on the game, until a chat window pops up on the TV.

 

_Hey, doofus._

 

Derek narrows his eyes at the TV and throws a glance over at Stiles to see why his character is now apparently talking to Derek's character on screen when they are sitting less than a foot away from each other, but Stiles is staring straight ahead, seemingly intently focused on the game.

 

_Lydia's throwing a party Friday. You wanna come?_

 

And Derek is not stupid, he can _see_ Stiles' fingers move on his controller's keys but other than a flush of pink high on his cheeks, Stiles shows no signs of acknowledging his involvement in any of this, no matter how much Derek stares a hole into the side of his face.

 

“You do realize I'm sitting right next to you, right?” Derek asks.

 

Stiles gives an embarrassed cough and pauses the game. He turns to Derek and nervously adjusts his glasses, giving him a self-deprecating smile.

“Shut up, I'm a very shy person, if you haven't noticed”, Stiles quips. “I thought you might rip my head off if spoken to directly.”

Derek rolls his eyes at the obvious deflection, but takes in Stiles' flushed face and the way he keeps gnawing on his bottom lip, and decides to let it slide.

“Shy? Yeah - I wish”, he says instead and, at Stiles indignant squawk, throws a pillow at his face.

And if Stiles needs an unusually long time to emerge from behind the pillow, well, Derek's definitely not going to be the one to call him out on it.

“No, but seriously”, Stiles starts as soon as his skin color has returned to a somewhat normal shade, “Lydia said we could bring whoever we wanted, so I thought...I would really li-”

“Pizza is here!”, Scott shouts from where he's toeing off his shoes at the door then.

He throws the pizza boxes onto the table in front of them and jumps across the back of the couch to land smack in the middle of Stiles and Derek.

“Did I miss anything? Dude, is this the first time you've ever played a video game?! That score is embarrassingly low”, he continues, oblivious of the tension in the room, and grabs Derek's controller from his limp hands, unpausing the game and promptly beheading one of Stiles' guys.

“Oooh, now that's what I call a fair fight!” Stiles crows and Derek huffs indignantly, starts sneaking pieces of Stiles' pizza in retaliation while he's thoroughly distracted.

 

It's an hour later, when the only thing that's left of the pizza are grease stains on Derek's jeans from where he had to fight Stiles for the last slice, that the party is brought up again.

“Hey Stiles, I just remembered, did you ask that guy from your English class? About Lydia's party?”

Stiles answers by coughing up most of the coke he had just been in the process of drinking and Derek sets his own glass down onto the table carefully.

“Wh- uhm...”, Stiles splutters and throws a quick glance in Derek's direction. As soon as their eyes meet, Derek looks away, focusing intently on scrubbing at the biggest stain right above his knee. “I...did.”

“And? What did he say? Is he coming?!”

Sometimes, Derek really _really_ hates Scott's enthusiastic streak.

“I don't know...he hasn't really given me an answer yet. Wait and see, I guess”, Stiles says and gives an embarrassed little laugh.

“I'm sure he'll show up. He totally should, you're awesome, man”, Scott supplies helpfully and Derek imagines clamping a hand over his mouth, hard, just to make him _stop_.

Stiles mutters a thanks and Derek rips his eyes away from his knee to find Stiles staring at him intently, cheeks tinted pink.

He swallows with some difficulty.

“Who are you talking about?”, he asks with as much non-chalance as he can muster.

“Dude, Stiles hasn't told you?”, Scott starts, seemingly unperturbed by any lingering awkwardness in the room. “There's this guy in his English class that he's like totally head over heels for...”

Derek hadn't even _known_ Stiles took English.

“I'm not... _head over heels_ for him, oh my god”, Stiles screeches, burrowing his face in his hands. “I just think he's...alright. Mildly cool.”

Scott snickers and shoves Stiles in the shoulder. “Sure, yeah, that's not what you've been telling _me_ for the past three months.”

Stiles groans and glowers at Scott meaningfully, his eye twitching menacingly. “ _Yes_ , but I'm sure Derek here doesn't want to hear all about that”, he grits out between clenched teeth and really, Derek can only agree. He does _not_ want to hear about some guy Stiles has had a crush on since before he ever even heard about Derek Hale. It makes his stomach turn slightly and the unhealthy amount of pizza he consumed really isn't helping.

“What, why? Derek's as much your friend as I am, I'm sure he's at least somewhat interested in what's going on in your life. Right, Derek?”

And it's really not fair that he has to sit and let himself be subjected to this in his own home, cornered by Scott's puppy dog eyes and Stiles' pleading stare.

Pleading for _what_ exactly, Derek has no idea.

He's not entirely sure what's expected of him here, but he's fairly certain it doesn't involve jealously demanding to know the guy's name and address.

“Yeah, totally. That's what friends are for, right?”, he says instead and averts his eyes as he says it; pretends the words aren't scratching up his throat on their way out.

 

“Hey, what about you, Derek? You coming on Friday?”, Scott picks up the thread again half an hour later while they're taking the dirty dishes into the kitchen. “Maybe you can meet Stiles' mystery man then.”

If Stiles' heaving sigh is anything to go by, it seems Derek isn't the only one who's not too happy to have the subject revisited.

“Yeah, probably not”, he answers and busies himself with piling the dishes into the sink and turning on the tap.

“What, why?”, Stiles asks, appearing at Derek's elbow.

“Not really my scene.”

“What – parties? People? Socializing?”, Stiles presses. “Come on, it's going to be fun!”

“Yeah, Derek”, Scott chimes in. “I promise there's gonna be lots of nice girls there...”

“...or guys”, Stiles supplies, watching Derek closely for his reaction.

“Yeah, totally, whatever you're into is fine”, Scott hurries to add and Derek rolls his eyes at both of them, turning off the tap and pouring a generous amount of dishwashing liquid into the water.

“That's very inclusive of both of you, but I don't really _do_ casual”, he says and starts scrubbing down a plate vigorously.

“Who said anything about casual?”, Stiles pipes up and rescues the plate from Derek's death grip before he scrubs it right through, grabbing a dish towel and drying it off. “Maybe you'll find the love of your life at that party...”

“And I do serious even less right now”, he says in a tone that he hopes brooks no argument and thrusts the sponge at Scott's chest, ignoring his squeak at the water that soaks through his shirt.

Stiles is watching him with wide round eyes, mouth half-open in what Derek fears is going to be some kind of protest and he gives him a tiny smile to soften the blow.

The kitchen suddenly feels very small.

He dries his hands off on Stiles' towel without looking at anyone and slowly starts backing up towards the kitchen door.

“Sorry, getting trashed by someone half my age has worn me out, I'm going to bed”, he says and ignores the disgruntled huff coming from Stiles.

“I'm not hal-”,

“Yeah, I know”, Derek mutters softly and squeezes Stiles' shoulder reassuringly on the way to his bedroom. “G'night, boys.”

 

* * *

 

Friday rolls around two days later without anyone bringing up their conversation about it again and Derek sits in his room pretending to go through his notes while Scott and Stiles

finish getting ready.

He's fully prepared to shout a quick goodbye at them through his closed bedroom door and then break out the sixpack he's stashed under his bed earlier in preparation, when a knock at the door interrupts his (fake) focus.

Stiles peeks his head through the door. “Hey. We're off now.”

Derek swivels on his desk chair to face him and nods. “Alright. Have fun.”

“You sure you don't wanna come? We can totally wait for you to get rea -”

Derek shakes his head and smiles ruefully. “Nah, I'm good here.”

Stiles presses his lips together in what looks like disappointment and Derek thinks it's ludicrous how easily swayed he is.

“Okay.”

He makes to close the door and Derek grips the armrests of his chair to not jump up and stop him.

“Hey, Stiles?” he says instead. “Have fun with that...guy of yours.”

It doesn't really get easier the more he says it.

Stiles curls his lips up in an embarrassed smile and gives a self-deprecating laugh. “Yeah, I'll try. Night, Derek.”

And with that, he closes the door and Derek swivels back around to let his forehead hit the desk. He mentally gives himself a pat on the shoulder for planning ahead.

Beer is exactly what he needs right now.

 

He's not sure when exactly he decided this would be a good idea, but he's had four beers and half a bag of chips in the span of a few hours and, as Laura would say, he's always been a true masochist at heart, so staying up until 2 am to see if Stiles would come home tonight seemed just like the thing to do.

And damn-it, he thinks as he pops the lid off another beer and takes a long drag, when the hell did he start thinking of this as Stiles' home?

He has ESPN on in the background and he's munching on his chips pretty aggressively, so he doesn't realize someone has come into the apartment until he hears the door click closed softly. He turns around from his spot on the couch just in time to catch Scott and Allison disappearing into Scott's bedroom, waving at Derek and shouting a quick goodnight before the door closes behind them and then Stiles is swinging across the back of the couch right onto his bag of chips.

“Ooops, sorry”, he giggles as he fishes the bag out from under him and shoves it into Derek's lap. “Thanks for warming my bed, very sweet of you.”

Derek grunts non-committally in reply, because, well, there's no denying that's exactly what he's been doing and Stiles is all soft lines and heavy eyelids beside him and talking is suddenly looking like a very dangerous option.

At his lack of response, Stiles picks the beer bottle from Derek's hands gingerly and takes a long swig before offering it back to Derek. They take turns drinking, sitting in silence and watching TV until the bottle is empty.

Derek puts it onto the table with a soft clink and angles his body towards Stiles, laying his head onto the back of the couch and waiting until Stiles is mirroring his position. It brings them close enough that Derek can smell the beer on Stiles' breath, and something sharper, stronger, underneath it. Whiskey, probably.

“How was it?”, Derek asks softly and watches Stiles' eyes flutter half-closed in response.

“'t was alright”, he mutters, speech slurring together slightly. “Could've been better.”  
“What about that guy...from English?”

Stiles heaves a long sigh that fans across Derek's cheek. “Yeah, he didn't show up.”

“Oh”, Derek breathes and bites his tongue briefly. “That sucks, sorry.”

Stiles gives a one-shouldered half-shrug and lifts up one corner of his mouth.

“'s okay. You should've totally been there, though, to save me from all the boring couples. Were all off smooching somewhere and nobody wanted to talk to me”, he pouts and pokes Derek's chest, hard.

Derek catches Stiles' finger before he can start exploring for Derek's more ticklish spots and puts his hand down onto the cushion between them, patting it reassuringly.

“I'm sure that's not true”, Derek says and reluctantly takes his hand back, ducking his head to catch Stiles' gaze.

“Yeah, alright”, Stiles amends and yawns widely. “Still, would've been a lot more fun with you there.”

And then he does that thing where his eyes go all huge and liquid and warm – and damn, how is anyone supposed to resist that, especially at 2.30 in the morning, all hopped up on beer and lack of sleep.

“I'll be there next time.”

Stiles' face brightens up almost instantly, lips twitching into a large grin and eyes sparkling and god, Derek's never going to be able to say no to that.

“Promise?”, Stiles asks hopefully and holds out his pinky finger to Derek.

Derek sighs.

And he's 27, goddamn, he's old enough to know that nothing good ever comes from promising anything on five beers and a bruised little heart, and still:

“Promise”, he whispers and hooks his pinky around Stiles', because what's one more little mistake, right?

Stiles hums contentedly and lets his eyes flutter closed, resting his head back against the couch. He still has Derek's finger in a loose grip, their hands now resting on the cushion between them and Derek watches Stiles' face for a minute, features relaxing gradually as he slips deeper into that state somewhere between awake and slumber, before carefully freeing his finger.

Stiles opens one eye at the movement and looks at Derek contemplatively.

“Hey”, he whispers and shakes himself a little to wake up fully. “So I talked to Erica and Boyd tonight.”

Derek frowns. “Since when do _you_ know Erica and Boyd?”

“Since we met at Lydia's party and bonded over how difficult our good buddy Derek tends to be sometimes”, Stiles shrugs and grins at Derek cheekily. “Also, I met Erica at the library that one time, if you remember.”

Derek does nothing to try and hide his embarrassed cringe at the reminder. “Yeah...I try not to.”

Stiles huffs a little giggle into the crook of his arm and Derek swallows thickly.

“So, _anyway_ , we were talking and...to my defense, I was already well on the way to being plastered by then, but...I kinda asked Erica about that thing you said about not wanting anything serious at the moment? And she told me about some girlfriend you had that was like, a total bitch and ruined you for relationships forever?”, Stiles rushes to get out.

And, well, it's part of the truth, at least, even if Derek couldn't say when the last time was that he spared Kate even a passing thought.

“Well”, Derek sighs and spreads his arms wide. “What d'you wanna know?”

Stiles swallows audibly and starts picking at a loose thread on the edge of a sofa cushion. “Any of that true?”

Derek can't help but huff a little laugh and scrubs a hand down his face forcefully.

“The part about her being a bitch – yeah, definitely. The part about ruining me forever...I don't know. I just don't feel like I can go out there and just...fall in love with a random person I meet on the street right now. There's no...space, you know?”, he mutters and thumps a hand against his chest, over his heart. “I'm still trying to get over some things.”

And some _one_ , he thinks, but he's not brave enough to say that. He's not sure he's ever going to be, now.

There's sadness in Stiles' eyes as he watches Derek closely, filling them with moisture and squeezing Derek's heart in a vice grip.

“What happened?”, he rasps and Derek thinks it's too late in the night for this conversation, both of them too tipsy, emotions too raw. He thinks he would like that look on Stiles face to go away, not make it worse.

He thinks he would want to be sober for this, in control of all the soft, vulnerable places that tend to come out at night, but even so: he can admit that they probably wouldn't be here, attempting to have this conversation, if it weren't for the late hour and the drunken warmth that spreads through Derek's limbs and makes him loose and pliant.

“Well...we were together for about a year and a half”, Derek starts slowly, carefully avoiding Stiles' eyes. “We were living together in a tiny apartment in New York, which is where I started college before coming here. I thought she was it. I really thought I was going to marry that woman and have a family with her. I thought I was in love. Until, one day, I come home from class and find out she's changed the locks to our apartment and thrown all of my stuff into the backyard and...set fire to it.”

“Oh my god, Derek, that's awful”, Stiles whispers, squeezing Derek's elbow briefly.

“Yeah, well, it gets better”, Derek laughs mirthlessly. “Guess who she shacked up with in our apartment as soon as my stuff was out the window? - My dear uncle Peter.”

“ _No!_ ”

“Oh yes. He's a sleazy bastard, we don't talk to him”, Derek adds and sighs heavily. “So that's the whole story. Well, the short version of it. She broke up with me by fucking my uncle, throwing me out on the street and burning all of my stuff.”

Derek is slightly amazed at how easy it is to talk about this, now. He's still angry, sure, and he doubts that will ever go away, but there's none of the deep burning sense of shame and betrayal he felt for years whenever he thought about Kate and what she did to him. It feels good to finally talk about it with some distance.

Stiles seems to have fallen into a shocked stupor, mouth opening and closing soundlessly.

“I...I don't know what to say”, he finally manages and shrugs helplessly.

Derek smiles at him, slowly. He's getting drowsy now that the excitement is over. “You don't have to say anything. It's not _your_ fault.”

“Still”, Stiles insists, “I'm _so sorry_ this happened to you. I can totally see how you wouldn't want anything to do with relationships after that.”

And that's so far from the truth that Derek would feel guilty just by nodding, so he settles for shooting Stiles a grateful smile and not saying a word.

After that, he doesn't have a clue what to say, so when Stiles starts babbling about the weird people he met at the party tonight as an obvious ploy to distract Derek from his presumably dark thoughts, he happily settles for watching Stiles' mouth move around the words. They grow quieter and slower with time and he starts slurring the words together until, eventually, they peter out as his eyes drift shut and with one last exhale of breath, Stiles is asleep.

Derek stretches his arm out to where Stiles' blanket is sitting in a pile behind him and drapes it across Stiles slumbering form, tucking the edges in carefully where his feet are curled up under him. He turns off the TV and sits there in the dark room, head buzzing slightly from the beer and eyes adjusting only slowly to the darkness. Stiles is breathing evenly beside him, snuffling softly every now and then and because it's quiet and dark and late, Derek allows himself to curl up beside him and close his eyes for a minute.

 

When Derek wakes up, there's a crick in his neck and something sharp poking his ribs. The sun is warming his face from the left and it leaves him disoriented, because his room is out west and _something isn't right_.

He cracks an eye open and squints against the blinding light until his vision adjusts and...oh. So much for closing his eyes for a minute.

He's half-lying, half-sitting on the couch, upper body tipped over to rest on the arm of it. He cranes his neck slowly to the other side to find Stiles softly snoring on his right shoulder, his elbow jammed into Derek's side and Derek stops breathing.

He stays like that for what feels like ages, listening to Stiles snore and reveling in the weight and warmth of him pressed against Derek's side until he hears movement from behind Scott's bedroom door.

He startles and then halts abruptly in his panicked attempt to get up when Stiles grunts and snuffles at the jostling movement. Derek throws a terrified glance at Scott's door that's still thankfully closed and then towards Stiles happily sleeping on his shoulder.

There's just no way he's going to explain that to Scott.

So, in what he thinks is a quite skillfully smooth motion for this early in the morning, he slides Stiles' head from his shoulder and onto the back of the couch and holds his breath as Stiles turns his face into the cushion and sighs heavily. As soon as his breathing evens out again, Derek is up and across the room, closing his bedroom door behind him as quietly as possible.

Once inside, he leans back against the door and heaves a deep sigh.

His muscles are stiff and the inside of his mouth tastes vaguely like something died in there and there's a patch of drool on his favorite shirt, which - gross, totally gross, he should probably let Stiles wash that one himself, by hand, just to even the score a little bit. Also, maybe let him pay for his chiropractor, because he's pretty sure that crick in his neck is going to be permanent.

 

Try as he might, Derek can't remember the last time he felt this rested.

 

* * *


	3. Chapter 3

“Hey little bro – wanna know what a little birdy told me last night?”

Derek sighs and stands up from the kitchen table, motioning for Scott and Stiles to continue playing without him. Laura calling him in _that_ voice normally means he doesn't want anyone overhearing their phone conversation by accident.

It's Sunday afternoon and they're playing Monopoly and as he's leaving the room, out of the corner of his eye, Derek can see Stiles generously sharing the money he just “borrowed” from Derek's account with Scott. He heaves a long-suffering sigh as he closes his bedroom door behind him. He'll be lucky if they let him keep his properties.

“Judging by your tone of voice – no, probably not”, he tells Laura once he's made himself comfortable on his bed.

“So I was chatting with Erica yesterday”, Laura continues with complete disregard for Derek's protests, “and she told me you went and got yourself a study buddy...”

The over-boarding glee in her voice makes Derek roll his eyes, hard.

“He's not my _study buddy_ , what kind of word is that even?”, Derek mutters. “We're just sharing this table at the library, because we both kinda laid claim to it and now we're at a stand-off because neither wants to give in, so we're....yeah. Sharing. The table.”

And yes, Derek is very aware of exactly how stupid that sounds.

“Yeah yeah, Erica told me _all_ about how adorably lame you two are.”

Derek scoffs at the ceiling. He's not _lame_.

“Shut up”, he grouses and holds the phone slightly farther away from his ear as Laura's laughter rings down the line.

“Listen up, I want to meet him”, she tells him in that voice that says she means business once she's finished laughing at his expense.

“Who, Stiles?!”

“Yeah, sure, if that's what he's called. Wow, young love really is blind...or more like, tone deaf, I guess, in this case - that's a really strange name”, she blabbers and Derek has the sudden sinking feeling that Laura and Stiles combined will not bode well for him.

“You - I'm not...I don't even know what part of that sentence to address first!” Derek barks. “You're impossible, Laura. And you're definitely not meeting him!”

“Oh come on, Der”, Laura begs. “I just wanna make sure this guy's good enough for my baby brother...is that too much to ask?”

“Stop that, Laura. I'm not a child anymore, and we both know you're just curious, anyway”, Derek tells her and he really, really wants to get back to the game now.

“I'll tell Mom”, Laura says in a voice that makes it clear she knows the victory is hers. “You know she's going to want to meet him, right?”

Derek closes his eyes and massages the bridge of his nose briefly. If years of growing up with Laura have taught him one thing, it's this: sometimes, in order to survive, you've just got to lie down and pretend you're already dead.

“Fine”, he grits out eventually.

“Great!”, Laura chimes gleefully. “I'll come by on Wednesday at 3 to pick you up for ice cream. Make sure he's there so I can casually invite him along.”

 

When he finally gets back to the kitchen after repeatedly thumping his head against the wall behind his bed, Park Place has mysteriously changed its owner and Derek has, very unexpectedly, gone absolutely bankrupt.

 

* * *

 

As it turns out, Stiles is just _delighted_ to make Laura's acquaintance.

“It's so great to finally meet you”, he gushes as soon as Laura's through the door. “Derek's told me so much about you!”

Laura snorts.

“No, he hasn't”, she says and smirks at the color rising in Stiles' cheeks.

“Well, maybe not so much with _actual words_ ”, Stiles relents and shrugs one shoulder. “But I can totally read it in his face twitches that he thinks you're a very fine lady.”

A smug grin steals its way onto Stiles' face and Laura's ringing laughter fills the apartment as she claps an approving hand onto Stiles' shoulder.

_There's no way in hell this is going to end well for me_ , Derek thinks and hangs his head in defeat when Stiles cheekily winks at him.

“Oh, we're gonna have so much fun together, you and I”, he can hear Laura tell Stiles as she uses her hand on his shoulder to guide him out of the apartment and that's _great_ , just great.

 

They end up at an ice cream parlor two blocks from the apartment and cram themselves into the last available booth, right at the back of the store, Derek and Stiles on one side of the table, Laura and Scott on the other. Turns out, casually inviting Stiles along comes with the added bonus of casually inviting Scott along.

Laura orders two large sundaes for all of them to share and they start eating, feet knocking together under the table and elbows knocking on top of it and it all feels eerily like a weird version of a double date.

“So”, Laura says about halfway through the chocolate sundae she's been fighting over with Stiles, carefully licking her spoon clean and laying it on the table with a soft clink. “Are you two also history nerds like my dear brother here?”

There's a synchronized snort from Scott and Stiles that makes Laura raise an intrigued eyebrow at Derek. He thinks he should probably feel insulted.

“Nah, I'd never be able to remember all those dates”, Stiles tells Laura. “Derek makes it look all easy-breasy, but I can tell you: I've seen his flash cards – that stuff is insane! I've no idea how he does it.”

Even though he started out talking to Laura, somewhere during that last part, Stiles has turned to face Derek and with the way that they're forced to sit, thighs pressing against each other, it brings their faces a lot closer together than Derek would normally be comfortable with. He can count every freckle on Stiles' nose, can see the patch right beneath the hinge of his jaw where he missed a spot while shaving this morning and it's _very_ awkward, in this setting, with his sister watching their every move like a hawk.

He should probably stop staring.

As much as he wants to, though, Derek can't help but be transfixed with the way Stiles' lips curl up in this lazy little smile that he's never seen on him before, all warmth and amusement and promise, and not even the thought of Laura cataloging every little twitch of their fingers could make him want to turn away.

It's probably a very good thing that Stiles effectively destroys the moment then by shoving a big spoonful of ice into his mouth, making chocolate sauce dribble out the side of it.

“Aaanyway”, Scott drawls then and throws Derek a suspicious look, “I'm studying to become a vet and Stiles is majoring in criminology. His dad's the sheriff back home.”

Laura kinks an interested eyebrow at Stiles. “That's cool. You wanna be a sheriff as well, then?”

“Well, I'll probably have to bribe someone to actually give me a diploma first”, Stiles quips and smiles self-deprecatingly, “but yeah, ideally, that'd be the plan.”

“He's just being modest”, Scott jumps to Stiles' defense immediately. “I'm telling you, when we were kids, Stiles and me would get into all sorts of trouble trying to help with investigations ...”

And then he's off entertaining Laura with tales about crime solving in Beacon Hills and Stiles is left staring pensively into the last dregs of his ice cream.

Shooting a quick glance across the table to make sure Scott and Laura are thoroughly distracted, Derek nudges Stiles elbow with his own gently.

“You're gonna make a great Sheriff”, Derek reassures him softly.

Stiles turns big hopeful eyes on him.

“Yeah?”, he breathes and it's such a fragile little thing that it makes Derek reach out and squeeze Stiles' knee briefly under the table.

“Yeah”, he whispers back and suddenly, he doesn't think it's quite so bad anymore that they had to cram themselves into the back-most corner of the shop, where the lighting is bad and the tabletops are always a little sticky, because when Stiles' fingers find his under the table in an appreciative little squeeze, he's pretty sure there's no way Laura could have seen.

 

 

“He likes you”, Laura sing-songs when they're making their way back to Scott and Derek's apartment.

Scott and Stiles are walking at least ten feet in front of them, squabbling about what movie to watch when they get home, but Derek still shushes Laura vehemently, just to be on the safe side.

“No, he doesn't”, he insists stubbornly.

“Uh, yeah he does.”  
Derek exhales forcefully and studies the pavement in front of his feet thoroughly. “You're reading way too much into this. He's Scott's best friend and I happen to be Scott's roommate...”

“Yeah, right, he's _Scott's_ friend and that's all he is”, Laura snorts, clearly not convinced. “Come on, Derek, I'm not expecting you to break down and confess to your _epic lovestory_ , but give yourself some credit! He thinks you're awesome.”

Derek reluctantly drags his eyes away from his feet and throws a glance to where Stiles has just looped an arm around Scott's shoulder, head thrown back in laughter.

He's never that comfortable in Derek's presence.

Derek kicks at a pebble aggressively and watches is skip down the road in front of them.

“Even if that's true, it doesn't really matter anyway. He's into someone else.”

“Really?”, Laura asks incredulously, eyebrows drawn together in confusion.

“Yes, really.”

“You sure about that?” Laura presses. “It's not just you reading way too much into something?”

Derek sighs and shoves at her shoulder. “Yes, damn-it, Laura, why would I make something like that up?”, he asks and holds up a stopping hand as Laura opens her mouth to speak. “He told me so himself.”

Laura harrumphs and loops her arm through Derek's, leaning into him slightly in a gesture of quiet comfort.

Maybe it's not so bad, after all, having an older sister look out for him.

They walk like that until they're nearly at the house, in comfortable silence, until:

“Well, I guess that means you just have to show him that you're at least one thousand per-cent hotter than whoever that other guy is”, Laura suggests gleefully. “I'm voting accidentally forgetting your towel the next time you shower.”

 

Scratch that - it's _exactly_ that bad.

 

* * *

 

“So I was thinking – about the party – it's probably best if I get Scott out of the house for a few hours and distract him while you prepare everything, you know, get food and drinks ready, move anything breakable out of the way, let people in and stuff. That cool?”

Stiles and Derek are standing in line at the coffee shop around the corner from the library and, to be fair, it's been at least six hours since Derek had his last caffeine-fix, so he realizes he might not be the quickest when it comes to brain power at the moment, but - _what?_

“ _What?_ ”, he asks.

“Or, you know, _you_ could distract him”, Stiles offers and then scrunches his nose up in thought, “although let's be honest, that would probably look pretty suspicious and – I don't know how familiar you are with the concept – but that's kinda the exact opposite of what we're going for here.”

“No. No, forget about that”, Derek says, shaking his head repeatedly. “ _What party_ are you talking about?”

Stiles puts his hands on his hips then, looks at Derek with an exasperated frown on his face. “Dude, don't tell me you forgot!”, he whines. “We talked about this! We're having a surprise birthday party for Scott on Saturday and I explicitly remember telling you not to forget!”

“Stiles”, Derek says, very slowly, grabbing Stiles by the upper arms to make him look Derek in the eye. “I swear to god, this is the first I'm hearing about any of that.”

“What, _no!_ ”, Stiles insists and winds himself in Derek's grasp until he reluctantly lets go. “I asked you if we could throw a party at your place and you said yes!”

“No I didn't.”

“'Course you did!”, Stiles repeats and throws his hands up in the air in frustration. He only misses the steaming hot coffee cup of the girl walking past them by an inch and, at her glare, Derek throws her an apologetic smile. “We were in your kitchen and you were making pancakes. Don't you remember? You were throwing the pancakes really high in the air to flip them and I was super impressed because I didn't know you could do that, and you were wearing this awesome red Superman-cape...”

Derek shoots Stiles an incredulous look and kinks an expectant eyebrow.

“...and _oh_. You know, as I just heard myself say that, I realized all of that might've actually been a dream.”

“You don't say”, Derek deadpans.

Stiles throws him a crooked apologetic smile and flaps his hands around in a truly pathetic approximation of jazz hands.

“Surprise!”, he crows weakly. “We're having a birthday party for Scott on Saturday, at your place, sorry I didn't tell you sooner.”

“I haven't even said yes yet.”

They're almost to the front of the line now (and seriously, if all of this history shindig doesn't pan out, Derek's totally going to make a fortune having a coffee shop directly in front of the library. The sheer amount of time and money students are willing to invest just to get one halfway-decent cup of coffee three weeks before finals is _insane_ ) and Derek turns to study the specials board.

Beside him, Stiles starts whining pathetically and tugging at the sleeve of his leather jacket to get his attention.

“Come ooon, Derek”, he pleads, “you have to say yes, I already invited everybody.”

Derek has to bite his lip to stop the smile that's threatening to break and keeps his eyes resolutely focused on the different kinds of coffee blends in front of him. He is _not_ going to willingly subject himself to Stiles' puppy dog eyes.

“ _Without asking me first_ – so I don't really see how that's my problem.”

Stiles groans extensively beside him.

“Well, to be fair, I was pretty convinced that I _did_ ask you first up until a minute ago”, Stiles tells Derek's shoulder and prods him in the upper arm with his pointer finger until Derek finally relents and turns around. As expected, he's greeted by Stiles' big round eyes gazing at him imploringly.

“Please? Please please please? I'll even pay for your coffee, just say yes, Derek, pleeeease!”

 

And well, they _do_ only have three weeks until finals, it would practically be suicide to _say no to coffee_.

 

* * *

 

So come Saturday evening, Stiles takes Scott out for a couple of hours to go bowling while Derek dutifully fills the bathtub with beer and ice, moves all of the breakables into his room and locks the door, fills every available bowl he can find with chips and gummy bears and opens the front door approximately one hundred and thirty times until more people than he will ever know in his entire lifetime are hiding behind every possible surface and waiting for the birthday boy.

And as Derek sits in the dark with them, crammed behind the far left corner of their couch, he wonders, not for the first time that night, how the hell this has become his life.

 

Hours later, the party is in full swing around them and Derek is just in the middle of asking Boyd how his economics studies are coming along, when Stiles sidles up to them from the direction of the kitchen and throws a heavy arm around Derek's neck.

“Heeey, Derek”, Stiles drawls and slumps against Derek's side, leaning most of his weight on him.

“Hi Stiles”, Derek answers, looking down at where Stiles' face is smashed into his shoulder. He's marginally amused to find his eyes slightly unfocused and his mouth half-open, panting little warm puffs of air into the fabric of Derek's shirt.

“Hiii”, Stiles parrots back with a lazy smile on his face, his eyes glazing over as he stares at the tip of Derek's nose intently. His fingers tighten almost imperceptibly around Derek's neck, hot and slightly moist against his skin and it's making goosebumps rise up all over Derek's arms.

“Hi Stiles”, Boyd says then.

Stiles jumps, startled, and looses his footing for a moment, stumbling face-first into Derek's shoulder. Derek looks at Boyd, who raises an amused eyebrow, and loops an arm around Stiles' waist to hold him upright.

“Oh, hey Boyd”, Stiles says once he's regained his balance somewhat. “Didn't – uh – see you there.”

Boyd chuckles deeply and tilts his head in agreement.

“I figured. You doing alright there?”

Stiles nods vigorously, chin brushing against the top of Derek's shoulder repeatedly.

“Good. Fine. Good”, he says and Derek shoots the top of his head an incredulous look.

“How much did you have to drink?”, he asks and Stiles raises his head to look at Derek, lips pursing in a concentrated frown.

“I think...Erica made me play “I've never” with her”, he answers finally, with a vague wave in the direction of the kitchen.

“You lost a lot, huh, buddy?” Derek asks kindly and squeezes the arm that's still looped loosely around Stiles' waist as a safety precaution when Stiles nods with a very serious expression on his face.

“Your girlfriend is really kinky”, he tells Boyd then, stabbing an accusing finger in his general direction.

A dreamy smile blooms on Boyd's face. “Oh yeah, I know...I'm so blessed”, he says and waggles his eyebrows suggestively as Derek makes a disgusted face at him.

“The conversation made me feel very vanilla”, Stiles tells them in way too conversational a tone for the revelation then and Derek can feel heat bloom under his skin almost immediately.

“Thanks for sharing, Stiles”, Boyd grins and throws Derek an amused glance, who flips him off with the arm that's not currently attached to Stiles.

And then, next thing he knows, Stiles is touching Derek's left ear and tracing the shell of it with his index finger.

“You have really cute ears”, he mumbles, eyes narrowed slightly in concentration as he pulls on Derek's earlobe experimentally. Out of the corner of his eye, Derek can see Boyd double over, holding his stomach.

“Look, Boyd”, Stiles crows, flapping one of his hands in Boyd's direction excitedly to redirect his attention. “They're all pink and warm! 're your ears always this pink, Derek?”

Derek looks around the room wildly until he finds Erica, slumped against the far wall, roaring with laughter and shooting him a conspiratorial wink. As soon as Stiles is able to stay upright on his own again, he's going to kill her.

“I'm guessing it probably has to do with you talking about vanilla and stuff”, Boyd quips and Derek whips his head around to glare at him.

“Wha- why?”, Stiles asks, face scrunching up into the most adorable face of confusion he's ever seen and yeah, Derek should have probably stopped after his fourth beer as well.

“Okay, that's enough”, Derek decides and starts dragging Stiles away from a giggling Boyd just as Stiles mumbles “What's vanilla got to do with your ears going pink? Derek?”

He pulls him all the way across the living room and out onto the balcony to get some much-needed air. Once there, he deposits Stiles against the railing and goes back into the kitchen to get him a glass of water.

“That was _so_ not necessary”, he hisses as he passes a roaring Erica on his way back out.

“You're welcome, sweetie!”, she purrs at his retreating back and Derek can only make a very rude gesture at her over his shoulder before he steps out into the cold night air again.

 

At Derek's insistence, Stiles sluggishly drinks the glass of water and slumps against the railing again after, elbows propping up his weight. Derek leans next to him, the metal of the balcony biting into the small of his back, arms crossed against the chill of the night.

“'s nice”, Stiles hums, eyes closed and face turned towards the sky as if he were catching the last rays of sun.

“What, you getting too drunk to stand on your own?”

Stiles scrunches up his nose and giggles quietly. “You're funny”, he says and opens his eyes to squint up at Derek, “I like it when you're funny.”

“Well then I guess you don't like me very frequently”, Derek snorts, rolling his eyes.

Stiles grunts disapprovingly and wavers a little so he can bump his shoulder against Derek's.

“Nah. Pretty much like you all the time”, he mumbles softly, eyes fixed on Derek's face, looking unexpectedly lucid all of a sudden.

Derek's heartbeat speeds up against his will, blood rushing through his ears and drowning out the sounds of the party still going on inside. He's suddenly very aware of the cool air against his overheating skin, but just when he's afraid something very, very stupid may be about to happen, Stiles frowns deeply and adds, very seriously: “'cept when you make me drink water. Then I don't like you much. Water's _gross_.”

Derek exhales shakily.

“Fair enough. I wouldn't like me much either then”, he solemnly tells Stiles and is instantly rewarded with a blinding smile.

“Yeah?”

Derek nods, grinning. “Yep.”

“Good”, Stiles says and smiles at Derek lazily, eyes half-lidded.

They stay like that for a while, listening to the party noises drifting towards them and letting the cool night air wash over them, clear and soothing.

“'m glad I stole your table”, Stiles breaks the silence after a few minutes, tone conversational.

Derek jumps a little at the unexpected noise and turns to look at Stiles, eyes narrowed.

“So _now_ you're admitting to it?”

Stiles shrugs and the movement makes him lose his balance a bit, Derek shooting a hand out to steady him.

“Yeah”, Stiles admits, unashamed.

“Is this...have you entered some new stage of drunkenness or what?”, Derek asks, peering at Stiles closely. “Is this the moment where you're finally going to admit to eating the rest of my chocolate fudge cake?”

A manic kind of laughter bubbles out of Stiles' throat then and he doubles over to put his hands on his knees, breathing deeply in between bursts of giggles. Derek tries his best to look put out, but, if he's being honest, it's the highlight of the night for him.

“Never”, Stiles wheezes when he comes up for air again. “'ve told you a thousand times – you were sleep-eating. It's a very dangerous condition, you should totally get it treated.”

“Sure”, Derek snorts and bites his lip when Stiles starts giggling into his fist.

He stops abruptly when there's a loud clatter from inside the living room and jabs a finger into Derek's chest, face serious.

“Shush”, he reprimands Derek and before Derek can even open his mouth to explain that _he wasn't saying anything_ , Stiles goes on, “I'm tryin' to ride my sentimental high here, yeah? Stop ruinin' it.”

The hand on Derek's chest is still there, limply laying just over where Derek's heart is beating out a steady rhythm, and he pats it lightly in reassurance.

“I'm very sorry”, he solemnly swears, “Please continue.”

And makes a motion of sealing his lips and throwing the key away.

Stiles nods, mouth drawn down in what Derek assumes is supposed to pass as his serious expression right now.

“So. I'm glad I stole your table...and then denied it...and then...”, he slowly begins, narrowing his eyes for a moment as if trying to remember something, “...stuff happened...because now we're friends! And that's awesome 'cause you're awesome and I'm awesome and Scott's awesome, too, but _man_ , his ears aren't even _half_ as cute as yours...”

“You have a very strange fascination with my ears.”

“Yep”, Stiles nods, popping the _p_ , “yes, I do.”

Stiles falls quiet then, leaning back against the railing again and staring at the wall opposite them in deep concentration.

“Hey”, Derek mumbles, lightly touching Stiles' elbow with his, “I'm kinda glad you stole my table, too.”  
Stiles turns to him then, dopey smile on his face and with the way that they're basically leaning on each other, he's close enough for Derek to smell the alcohol on his breath.

“Derek...”, Stiles starts, swallowing thickly. His eyes are darting across Derek's face as if looking for something and Derek realizes Stiles' breath is coming in quicker, shorter gasps than before.

For a short, insane moment, Derek really wishes for a glass of water, because how is he supposed to do _anything_ when his mouth is feeling like it's lined with sandpaper and he can't even make his throat muscles move enough to swallow? And then Stiles is swaying forwards, into Derek's personal space, tequila breath fanning across his face and there's no space in Derek's brain for anything other than _this_ , Stiles' hands gripping Derek's biceps tightly, his eyes half-closed and brow furrowed deep in concentration.

“I think I need to lie down”, Stiles blurts, face twisting into a mixture of nausea and confusion.

Derek exhales deeply, adrenaline draining out of his body in a rush and leaving him slightly shaky.

_Should've seen_ that _coming_ , he thinks fleetingly as he hoists Stiles' arm around his shoulder and slings his own arm around Stiles' waist to drag him back into the living room and, ignoring the cat calls coming from where Erica is curled up on the couch with Boyd, over to Derek's bedroom.

 

When he deposits Stiles' limp body onto his bed, he's already half-asleep, mumbling non-sense under his breath that Derek is not even going to try to decipher.

As soon as his head hits the pillow, _Derek's pillow_ , he turns his face into the soft cotton material and inhales deeply, humming approvingly.

Derek moves down to the foot of the bed to take Stiles's shoes off and tugs at the comforter until Stiles grumbles and moves halfway off it, far enough that Derek can tug it the rest of the way out from under his body. He drapes it back over Stiles and goes to get a glass of water and a bowl, in case of emergencies, and puts both of it on the floor next to the bed.

He's just about to say goodnight and leave when Stiles turns his head far enough that his mouth emerges from the pillow, opening one eye.

“My bed smells empty”, he whines and worms a hand out of the cocoon Derek made for him, pressing the heel of it into his eye.

“This is _my_ bed, Stiles. Not yours”, Derek whispers, trying to go for soothing.

Stiles just flaps his hand and makes a high fussing sound.

“I know _that_ , 'm not stupid”, he complains and lifts his hand to hook it into Derek's shirt collar where he's leaning over the bed, tugging him closer. “I mean at home. I don't like it.”

Derek's back is rapidly starting to complain from the awkward position Stiles' tugging has put him in, bent down deep over the bed and he puts a hand onto the mattress next to Stiles' shoulder to steady himself.

He's not even going to try to understand any part of this conversation they're having.

“Get some sleep, Stiles”, he murmurs and tries to pry Stiles' fingers loose from where they're still hanging onto his shirt tightly.

It only makes Stiles clench his fingers tighter and stick his bottom lip out in an exaggerated pout.

“Stay?”, he asks in a small voice, tugging on Derek's collar lightly in a silent request.

Derek throws a quick look over his shoulder to where his bedroom door is closed, but not locked and then thinks, _fuck it, it's not like their jokes can get any worse_ , and follows willingly, lying down in the small space between Stiles body and the edge of the mattress.

Stiles lets go of his shirt almost immediately, curving his body around Derek's, not touching except for where he lays his arm on top of Derek's, lightly circling Derek's wrist with thumb and forefinger.

Derek is watching, fascinated, as Stiles closes his eyes and burrows deeper into the covers, humming contentedly.

“Night, Derek”, he breathes softly and before Derek can even open his mouth to answer, his face goes slack in sleep.

Derek lies there a long time, eyes open in the dark room, listening to Stiles' breaths slow and deepen, watching his eyelids move rapidly while dreaming.

He lies there long after the sounds from the party outside his door have died down, long after his arm has gone numb and the light coming through his bedroom window has turned a dark gray.

It's not until Stiles rolls away from him in his sleep, relinquishing his hold on Derek's wrist and turning his back on him, that Derek gets up and leaves the room, settling in for a fitful night of sleep on the couch.

 

* * *


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is somewhat of an interlude, I guess, in that nothing really happens in this chapter. It's actually just the first half of what was originally going to be the next chapter, but that got waaay too long, so I decided to split it.  
> Enjoy anyway - the Sheriff's in this one ;)

When Derek finally wakes up out of his alcohol-induced slumber, it's to a nervous-looking Stiles sitting on the coffee table right next to him, jiggling his knee and holding two coffee cups.

“Great, you're awake”, he announces as soon as Derek's eyes are open and thrusts one of the mugs at him.

Derek sits up gingerly, head throbbing lightly at the movement and takes the proffered cup. It's not exactly hot on the outside and as he takes a sip, he realizes the coffee has disgustingly already cooled down to room-temperature, at best.

“How long've you been sitting here?”, Derek croaks and sets the cup on the table next to Stiles' hip. “I figured you'd still be out cold at...” He glances at the clock above the TV and groans, “9.30. Seriously?”

Stiles shrugs and circles the rim of his coffee cup with his index finger. “Alcohol makes me fall asleep really fast, as you probably noticed but it doesn't let me sleep in at all, no matter how tired or hung-over I am. It's very counter-productive but what can you do, right?”

Derek nods and scrubs a hand across his face tiredly.

“Alright. Is there any particular reason you're sitting out here and watching me sleep for what I'm assuming was a creepily long time instead of, I don't know, waiting in the kitchen...?”, he asks, stretching his feet out on top of the coffee table.

Stiles sighs and rakes a hand through his hair feverishly, making it stick up every which way.

“Well...no, not really, except for the fact where I woke up in _your bed_ and you were out here and I remember bits and pieces of last night, but not like the whole thing...and I just wanna say I'm _really_ sorry if I said anything weird or awkward or did anything that made you hate me or...oh god. I didn't puke on you, did I?”

“No. There was no puking on anyone. Or any _thing_ , for that matter”, Derek assures him and Stiles lets out a deep sigh. “And don't worry. I don't hate you. That's stupid.”

Stiles looks up from his coffee mug and smiles at Derek, tentatively. “Good, that's good”, he says. “So I didn't do anything weird?”

And Derek hesitates because that's the million dollar question right there, isn't it?

How much of what was said last night can Derek actually take at face value, how much of it was born out of real closeness as opposed to an alcohol-induced one and how much of that would Stiles just as easily have told Scott or Lydia or anyone else he has a platonic connection with?

He hasn't even been awake for more than five minutes yet; all this confusion is giving Derek a massive headache and the very obvious fear etched into Stiles' features really doesn't do anything to help.

“Well, yeah, you _were_ pretty hammered”, Derek tells him and can't help smirking a bit at Stiles' pained groan, “but not, like, abnormally weird. Not for you, at least.”

Stiles scowls at him and Derek grins back.

“Basically, you just blabbered a lot about your sex life and how very _very_ awesome I am and about how you stole my table and my fudge cake that one time...”

“Pfft, no way. I wasn't _that_ drunk.”

“...thanks for finally owning up to that, by the way, and something about your bed smelling...empty? No idea what that meant. And then...yeah, I think that's basically it.”

“I didn't...”, Stiles starts and then stops abruptly, hand gesticulating vaguely in the space between them, “...talk about ears, by any chance?”

Stiles looks mildly scared, Derek realizes, a flush high on his cheeks and biting his lip nervously and well, there's no real need to make them both relive the awkwardness that comes with all that stuff about Derek's ears, right?

“No”, Derek states firmly, “No talk about ears.”

Stiles exhales in relief and nods, smiling.

“Awesome”, he says and nudges Derek's knee with his own. “So we're good?”

“Totally.”

Stiles nods again and then takes both of their mugs, starting towards the kitchen. Halfway there, he turns back as if remembering something.

“Oh and Derek?”, he says. “Don't let me kick you out of your own bed next time. Seriously. Just...roll me onto the floor or sleep on top of me or whatever. Don't sleep on the couch just because I can't handle my liquor. Okay?”

Derek sighs, because there's just no way he's going to tell Stiles that what he did was pretty much the exact opposite of kicking Derek out of the bed and settles on a curt nod, instead.

“Okay.”

 

* * *

 

And then reality comes crashing down on them as soon as they make it to school on Monday and everybody's flipping their shit over finals and there's no time to think about drunken half-confessions and sleeping arrangements. They hit the ground running to make up for the time they've already lost and soon enough, Derek's becoming way too familiar with the walls in their dingy little corner of the library than he feels he should ever be comfortable with.

It's probably the best thing to ever happen to Derek's mental health that he has Stiles sitting across from him every day now, throwing stupid jokes at him and making him go for a coffee run when the stress of staring at the same four walls for too long threatens to drown him. He even loans Derek his nap pillow once or twice, when Stiles – quote: _gets bags under his eyes just from looking at Derek_ – and orders him to sleep.

Derek doesn't, because sleeping in the middle of the day is just not something his body is willing to do, no matter how tired and instead amuses himself with breathing in the comforting scent of Stiles' pillow and watching him gnaw off his bottom lip in concentration until he gets a peanut shell flicked in his face for his efforts.

 

Scott and Stiles have also started working together in making Derek take at least an hour off from studying every night to do something fun which, tired as they are, mostly means watching TV or playing video games.

It's during one of those hours, when Derek and Stiles are watching an old rerun of Friends that Stiles blurts, quite unexpectedly: “I think my Dad and Scott's Mum are hooking up.”  
Derek rips his eyes away from the TV and blinks at Stiles.

“What, why?”

“Well, Derek, sometimes, if there are two people who really really like each other, they want to express that by -”

“Stop, please”, Derek begs, holding a hand up to stop Stiles, who is grinning from ear to ear. “Why do you think they're hooking up?”

Stiles shrugs and pops a crumb of left-over pizza into his mouth. “To be honest, I think they've been working up to it for years and now they've announced they're coming over for dinner next Sunday, because they have “something to tell us”, so...”

“And you're...okay with that, right?”, Derek asks hesitantly, not wanting to overstep his bounds.

“Oh yeah, totally”, Stiles assures him, nodding vigorously. “I mean, Scott's like a brother to me and Melissa is totally awesome and...my Dad deserves to be happy, you know? I know my Mum would've wanted him to be.”

And there's a hint of sadness in Stiles' smile, but it's more nostalgic than anything else and Derek squeezes Stiles' elbow briefly and gives him a small smile, but let's the moment pass otherwise.

“That's nice”, he says after a minute. “Just tell me when they're planning to come over and I'll make myself scarce.”

“What? Why?”, Stiles asks, brows drawn together in a confused frown.

“Well, it sounds like a family dinner to me...”

“So?”, Stiles asks. “Don't be ridiculous, Derek, you're totally staying for dinner. My Dad has been wanting to meet you anyway.”

And if that's not enough to make Derek _not_ want to attend this dinner, the conversational tone with which Stiles says that and then keeps on munching on left-overs kind of makes Derek want to be as far away from the Sheriff as possible.

“Yeah, Derek”, comes Scott's voice from where he's just exited his room then, “Everyone wants to meet you. Also, Ally is coming as well and you wouldn't want her to feel bad for being the only one there not blood-related, huh?”

And that's just not fair.

Allison knitted him a freaking _hat_ last month, for Christ's sake, just because she had some wool left over and then, to top that off, she's also been teaching him Kung Fu - how is he supposed to say no to that?

“Alright”, Derek sighs and the synchronized answering smiles almost blind him. “Any plans for food yet?”

Scott and Stiles exchange a look of confusion and then Scott scratches his head and shrugs apologetically.

“Uhm, we were thinking they could just pick up some Chinese on their way over here...?”, he starts and trails off when he sees Derek shaking his head vehemently.

“No. No no no”, he insists. “We're not serving your parents _take-out_ , what kind of heathens are you? We're cooking a nice family dinner like the civilized adults we are, understood?”

“Uh, Derek?”, Stiles pipes up in a quiet voice. “Sorry to trample on your dreams, but Scott and I know how to pour water over instant noodles and that's about it...”

Derek heaves a deep sigh.

“Fine. _I_ will cook a nice family dinner.”

Scott starts excitedly jumping up and down in his seat and thanks Derek profusely, while Stiles emits some kind of strangled grunt.

“You are _killing_ me, Derek”, he moans and flings himself back against the cushions of the couch, throwing an arm over his face and groaning into the fabric of his sweater.

Derek throws a questioning glance at Scott, who shrugs his shoulders and starts patting Stiles on the arm with reassuring murmurs of _There, there_.

Derek's not really sure what he's done wrong.

“What he's trying to say”, Scott starts to explain, “is that you, Derek Hale, are a prince among men and a godsend and we will forever love you if you actually manage to pull that off.”

There's some kind of affirmative grunt from where Stiles still has his face buried. He motions for Scott to come closer and Scott leans his head right next to Stiles', nodding along to whatever he's mumbling into his sleeve and when Scott pops back up again, it's with a big cheeky grin on his face.

“Oh and also that you will be sorry you ever told us you can cook because _damn_ we're gonna milk that _so hard_.”

 

* * *

 

Sunday comes faster than Derek expected, what with all his time being spent memorizing mind-numbing facts, and soon enough, it's an hour until the parents are scheduled to arrive. The lasagna Derek made from scratch to an awed audience of two is in the oven, the crème brulées are in the fridge and Derek is standing in front of his closet, doors open and quietly freaking out.

He calls Laura.

“What am I supposed to wear?”, he asks immediately, foregoing any sort of greeting.

“Well what are _they_ wearing?”, comes the tinny answer.

Derek throws a glance towards his closed door as if he hadn't just seen the Scott and Stiles two minutes ago.

“Stiles is wearing a shirt with something like a muffin on it and Scott...not wearing a shirt as of yet.”

“Well that's not exactly a great help”, Laura snorts down the line and Derek is very nearly ready to tear his hair out.

“Maybe it's totally casual...?”, he suggests meekly.

Another snort, louder this time.

“Yeah, sure, for them it is”, she tramples all over Derek's hopes and dreams. “But _they_ 're not trying to impress their hopefully-future father-in-law, now, are they?”

Derek makes a wounded noise that he hopes translates well over the phone.

“Don't try to deny it, Derek!”, Laura admonishes and then sighs briefly, her voice softening. “Just put on a clean white shirt that's not too tight and you should be fine."

“Thanks”, Derek answers curtly and is already elbow-deep in his closet, rifling through his shirts and just as he goes to click the call away, he can hear Laura shout “ _And try to have some fun, too_ ” down the line.

 

* * *

 

Trying to have fun seems like a very distant concept, Derek thinks as soon as the Sheriff comes through the door and fixes Derek with an appraising look, holding out his hand formally.

“So I'm guessing you must be that Derek person that my son has been talking my ear off about these last few months...”, he states gruffly and Derek swallows with great difficulty.

“ _Daaad_ ”, Stiles hisses imploringly then and turns an alarming shade of red.

It's kind of adorable, Derek thinks, and the shared embarrassment gives him the courage to power through his own and he takes the Sheriff's outstretched hand and shakes it twice, with purpose.

“I guess I am, Sir”, he manages, voice only trembling the slightest amount.

There's a tiny smile on the Sheriff's face and he makes a small waving gesture with his free hand.

“Please”, he says as he releases Derek's hand and claps him on the shoulder, “call me Sheriff.”

Derek stares at him, unmoving, not sure what to do or say and he can hear Stiles' strangled groan and Scott's choked off giggle beside him.

“John”, Melissa admonishes with a snort from where she's been putting down a bottle of red wine on the kitchen table, “stop intimidating the poor boy! He's just messing with you, Derek, sweetie.”

She gives Derek a warm smile and he exhales, forcing himself to relax a tiny bit.

“And you, both of you”, Stiles cuts in, voice slightly raised, and points a finger at both Melissa and his Dad “stop talking about us like we're little kids! Derek's twenty-seven, for God's sake!”

The Sheriff raises a disapproving eyebrow at his son.

“Twenty-seven?”, he asks and Stiles groans in response.

“Yes, and I'm nearly twenty-four, Dad”, Stiles declares, “Relax!”

And then Stiles uses both of his hands on his father's shoulder blades to steer him away from the entrance and into the kitchen. Halfway there, he turns towards where Derek is still standing next to the open door, a little lost, and mouths _Sorry!_ at him before turning the corner.

How is it possible, Derek wonders to himself incredulously as he closes the door, that dinner hasn't even started and already they've managed to completely lose him?

 

Dinner itself goes surprisingly smoothly, though, everybody too busy shoveling down Derek's lasagna and praising him for it to keep up the interrogations for any extended period of time.

Derek is proud to admit he's even enjoying himself a little bit, especially when Stiles takes the first bite of his food, moaning appreciatively and Allison shoots him a big thumbs-up over Scott's head for it.

Ten minutes ago John and Melissa had also finally broken the news that they had been seeing each other for a few weeks now and the resulting outpouring of joy had made Derek inexplicably grateful to be allowed any part of this. He realizes he's missed this somewhat fiercely, being surrounded by family, be it blood-related or otherwise, and promises himself to call his parents the next day.

“So, what are you up to these days?”, the Sheriff asks, patting his stomach contentedly when he's finally finished scraping his plate clean with his fork.

“Ugh, studying”, Stiles complains, mopping up the last of the tomato sauce with his index finger until he feels Melissa's disapproving glare on him and stops, furtively wiping his fingers clean on his napkin. “Nothing exciting happening at all.”

Allison snickers a little. “You make it sound like we've been hiding in our rooms for months! It's really not that bad”, she says and turns to John and Melissa, “We had a really great surprise birthday party for Scott here last week. Derek and Stiles threw it.”

Melissa throws them a warm smile. “Aw, that's awfully nice of you.”

Scott nods eagerly and turns a beaming grin on them. “Yeah, it was totally awesome, these two are the best!”

And, wow, that's way too much praise in one evening for Derek to handle. He starts fiddling with the napkin in his lap to give his fingers something to do and his eyes something to stare at.

“Well, to be fair”, Stiles says, “Derek did most of the actual work, I basically just kept Scott from coming home too early and ruining the surprise.”

The Sheriff throws Derek a commiserating look, like he's been on the receiving end of Stiles' schemes enough times to truly appreciate his sacrifice.

“I wonder how he managed to rope you into that one”, he mutters and raises his eyebrows at his son disapprovingly.

Stiles responds with an indignant squawk and Derek thinks the Sheriff might actually be pretty cool, when he's not busy trying to intimidate the living shit out of him.

“Yeah, I wonder how...”, Derek glowers playfully with his eyes fixed on Stiles, who gives him a blinding smile in response.

“Guess I just got lucky”, he responds simply and pushes his big toe into the fleshy part of Derek's calf under the table, eyes still locked firmly on Derek's, while the conversation keeps flowing easily around them.

And yeah, Derek can totally throw a party or two, if an evening like this is what he gets in return.

 

* * *

 

It's eleven days later, when, fresh off his last final of the semester, Stiles drops into the seat opposite Derek at the library, hair mussed and a sleepy smile on his face.

Derek looks up from his flashcards and can't help but smile warmly at the content look on Stiles' face, even though his nerves at having his last exam still loom over his head are making Derek's stomach tie in knots.

He raises questioning eyebrows at Stiles and he shrugs lightly in response.

“It was alright”, he whispers back, and it's so quiet that Derek thinks he's probably more lip-reading than anything else, “I don't really care. It's _over_!”

“ _Congrats_ ”, Derek mouths across the table and then makes a table-encompassing sweeping motion with his hands to remind Stiles it's not over for everybody yet.

Stiles smiles lazily and then makes a shooing _do your thing_ gesture before sliding down in his chair until he can lean his head on the back of it and closes his eyes.

Derek goes back to his flashcards and works in silence for a while, placing his cards on one of two piles, depending on whether he still needs to review the information on them or not.

Then, suddenly, there's a hand sneaking into his field of vision and grabbing one of his cards. Derek looks up to see Stiles grinning at him and makes a disgruntled noise, holding his hand open expectantly over the table.

Stiles shakes his head briefly, a small smile playing on his lips and goes to quickly scribble something down on the card.

 _This one's empty. RELAX!_ it reads and Stiles shows him both sides of the indeed empty card and waits for Derek to nod curtly before bending over it and writing furiously.

Derek goes back to reviewing his work, but it's hard to pay attention now he knows Stiles is planning some kind of scheme and it irritates him a little, the fact that his concentration can be so easily swayed. So it actually comes as quite a relief to have Stiles tapping on his arm with the corner of the card. He stops pretending to read and takes the flashcard.

 

_I'm taking you out tomorrow to get drunk after you ace your exam – no discussions!!_

_Turn around to see if you answered the question correctly and I'll let you nerd out in peace ;)_

 

 _What question?_ Derek mouths at Stiles and is rewarded by Stiles rolling his eyes at him and moving his index finger in a loose circle to signal turning the card over.

The back is covered almost entirely in Stiles barely legible chicken scratch and Derek turns disbelieving eyes on Stiles before he sighs and begins to read.

 

_The answer is YES!!!_

_Of course I would like nothing better than to get drunk with Stiles, my best friend, light of my life, he who is the awesomest, most interesting, smartest, most likable and sexiest motherfucker of all the universe. There is nothing in the whole wide world I would rather do than spend every waking (and sleeping) minute in the company of this godsend, this angel fallen from heaven, this-_

 

\- Derek stops reading. There's still at least a quarter left.

He snorts in disbelief and crumples the card into a ball, flicking it into Stiles' stupid grinning face and flipping him off as well for good measure.

Stiles just winks at him before standing up and throwing him two thumbs-up, beaming as he leaves their little corner walking backwards, eyes fixed on Derek until he has to turn away to avoid falling down the stairs.

 

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: Derek and Stiles get drunk!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy! ;)

His final exam turns out easier than Derek thought it would, which means he's in a pretty good mood when he leaves the building to find Stiles sitting on the wall across from the lecture hall entrance, two take-away cups in hand.

As soon as Stiles spots him, he deposits the cups on the wall beside him and hops down, skipping across to Derek and throwing his arms around him in a tight hug.

“Congratulations, big guy!” Stiles laughs into his ear, his breath hot against the skin of Derek's neck. “Free at last, finally!”

Derek grunts in response, too tired for words and squeezes his arms tighter around Stiles' waist, enjoying the easy comfort of a warm body pressed to his.

They stay like that for a few moments, wound up tight in each other and Derek buries his face in the spot where Stiles' shoulder meets his neck when he realizes they've made it way past the point where they could have stopped without it being awkward.

He inhales the distinct scent of Stiles, all soap and warmth and cinnamon and decides he really doesn't care anymore.

With one last tight squeeze, Stiles finally takes a small step back and Derek lets him go, reluctantly.

“C'mon, I got you a cinnamon-vanilla latte”, Stiles says and smiles at Derek, stepping out of his personal space and walking over to where he had abandoned the coffee cups earlier.

“Ugh, you're the best”, Derek moans emphatically when he pops the lid off his cup and takes a large sip.

“I sure hope so”, Stiles quips and starts walking, beaming at Derek over his shoulder until he follows and falls into step beside Stiles. “Alright, so here's the itinerary: I'll come by at around seven, 'cause I promised Scott I'd bring food for the poor peasants who still have a whole week of exams ahead of them and after that, we'll head out and drink until we've forgotten every last thing we crammed into our poor brains these past few weeks. Sound good?”

“Perfect”, Derek murmurs, cradling his cup in both hands for warmth.

Stiles throws him a glance. “And I strongly advise you take a nap until then. I'm not going out with you while you look like _that_ ”, he announces and pokes a finger to where Derek knows he has dark circles under his eyes.

Derek slaps his hand away and scowls at him.

“Maybe _I_ won't go out with _you_ when you look like that”, he grumbles and waves a hand to encompass Stiles' everything.

Stiles gives an affronted squeak and shoves Derek in the shoulder hard enough to make him stumble.

“ _Dude_ , do we need to get the flash card out again or what?” he huffs indignantly. “Whatever. Just be ready at 7. Wear something nice!”

And with a small little wave and a grin, he's parting ways with Derek, off to his own apartment to give Derek a few hours of rest that he'll desperately need if he has any hopes of surviving the night.

 

* * *

 

They go to some club that Isaac recommended and Stiles doesn't shut up about it all the way over there. Derek is somewhat overwhelmed - he can't remember Stiles ever talking this much in all the time they've known each other and that means he's used to a _lot_ of talking from Stiles.

He's contemplating asking Stiles if his ADHD might be acting up again when they round the last corner to the club and he still hasn't managed to get a word in edge-wise, but ultimately decides against it.

No need to start the evening off by being a rude dick.

Inside, the lights are dim and the table-tops are sticky and there's already some people swaying to the music on the open space in the middle that acts as a dance-floor, even though it's only 8.30.

Stiles makes Derek sit down at a table in the corner and goes to the bar to order drinks.

“First round's on me”, he announces as he plops down in his seat and puts a tray down on the table between them. Derek blinks at the two large beers and six shots neatly lined up in front of him and kisses his sobriety goodbye for the evening.

“Alright”, he announces and lifts up one of the shot glasses, clinking it to Stiles'. “Let's do this.”

It helps, Derek realizes, as they're downing shot after shot and he can practically witness Stiles gradually relaxing into his normal self as the alcohol starts to hit. He chalks the babbling earlier up to post-exam excess energy and discards it as just another of Stiles' idiosyncrasies. Instead of dwelling on it, he focuses on matching Stiles beer for beer, shot for shot and getting up to buy another round when the glasses are empty.

 

*

 

They've been in the club for nearly two hours and Derek's feeling pleasantly tipsy when a waitress approaches their table and grins at Derek widely.

“You doing alright here?”, she asks cheerfully, “Or is there anything else I can get you?”

Derek smiles at her and shakes his head briefly. “Nah, we're fine, thanks.”  
Instead of nodding and turning around then, as Derek expects her to, the waitress puts her hands on the table and leans onto them, bringing her breasts really up and close to Derek's face. He throws Stiles an incredulous look and finds Stiles staring at the side of the girl's head, eyes narrowed darkly.

“You sure?”, she purrs, flicking her long blonde hair over her shoulder with one hand and almost hitting Stiles in the face with it. “I'll be happy to help you out with anything you might need, sugar...”

Derek stares at her, morbidly fascinated. He's never been hit on _this hard_ in his entire life and it's equal parts scary and riveting and he kind of really wants to ask her if that actually ever works, on _anybody_.

He doesn't get to, though, because as soon as she's finished talking, Stiles is gripping her shoulder and yanking her around to look at him.

“Listen up, _lady_ ”, he hisses, mouth pursed in an angry frown, “I know I'm like...completely invisible compared to _all that_ ” - and makes a vague gesture towards Derek's side of the table - “but try and open your eyes next time, alright? Can't you see he's here with _me_?”

The girl takes a step back, surprised, and surveys the table, flicking her eyes between Derek and Stiles a few times before sighing and holding her palms up in a placating gesture.

“My bad”, she drawls, sounding bored all of a sudden, “Should've known someone that pretty wouldn't be straight.”

Pops her gum, winks at Derek and turns around to leave.

“Stereotypes, _oh_. Fucking great!”, Stiles shouts after her, seething, but there's no sign that she acknowledges him at all.

When Stiles turns back around to face Derek, his cheeks have angry red blotches on them and he winces slightly when he meets Derek's amused gaze.

“Sorry”, he mumbles apologetically, “I kinda overreacted, didn't I?”

“A bit, yeah.”

“But that was...she was so _rude_!”

Derek inclines his head in agreement.

“She was”, he allows, “but you know you don't have to like, defend my honor, right? I'm a big boy, I'm perfectly capable of telling someone to stop if I don't want to get hit on.”

“Oh”, Stiles mutters, his face falling, “Sorry, I didn't...she's probably still around somewhere if you...”

He trails off and looks at the tabletop where he's wringing his hand together, red blotches reappearing on his cheeks in full force.

“Stop”, Derek admonishes softly and slides his foot over until it rests against Stiles', just because he thinks he can get away with it. “I'm here with _you_ , just like you said. I'm not gonna go after her, don't be stupid. I just meant, I would've told her to leave if she really bothered me.”

“Well, maybe she bothered _me_ ”, Stiles says, petulantly, and dips a finger into the condensation left behind by his beer glass, drawing a squiggle onto the table top.

The alcohol buzzing through his veins has Derek all relaxed and giddy and when he spots the smile tugging at Stiles' lips where he's bent over the table, he can't help the grin that spreads across his own face.

“Oh yeah?”, he asks softly in a sudden bout of confidence and lets his legs fall open purposely, making his left knee come to rest against Stiles' under the table.

Stiles lifts his head at the contact, finding Derek's eyes with his. He doesn't move his leg away.

“Yeah”, he breathes, almost too soft for Derek to pick up over the thump of the bass, and maybe he should blame the alcohol for this, but Derek can't help but think it feels a lot like a promise.

 

*

 

“Did'ya know that, like – historically – heterosexuality originally was everything that's, like, bad and no-no 'bout sex?” Stiles declares very matter-of-factly and Derek claps a hand across his mouth to smother his giggle.

“ _What?_ ”, he croaks and scrunches his face up in amusement.

It's pretty late by now, the dance floor filled with writhing bodies and grinding couples and they're both slumped across the table, carefully avoiding the vast collection of empty bottles and glasses on it. Stiles has been telling Derek that he's thinking about taking History of Sexuality next semester, just for fun, and Derek is really starting to have trouble keeping it together.

It's not exactly that the topic is an especially funny one, but more the fact that he has been listening to variations of the word “sex” come out of Stiles' mouth for over thirty minutes now and in his inebriated state, there's really only two reactions he can possibly have to that: get uncomfortably aroused in a public place or giggle like a prepubescent teen.

Derek goes with giggling.

“Yeah, no, I'm serious, man”, Stiles declares and does an exaggerated serious face that has Derek snickering into the crook of his arm, “'cause, you know, hetero means different, like how boys are different to girls, right? And back then...that just meant all the sex that's different! How cool is that, huh? All those straight people're basically calling themselves perverts!”

Derek watches Stiles collapse onto his folded arms in a fit of laughter.

“Good to know we've got nothing to do with that then”, Derek grunts and Stiles peeks at him from where his face is buried in his arms.

He scrunches his nose up pensively and makes a humming sound.

“Hmm no, we're still perverts as well”, he decides, finally, and grins at Derek. “'Cause only baby-making sex's normal sex, ya know?...so basically almost everything we do 'd be perverted: safe sex, oral, handjobs, gay sex, blow-...”

“Yeah, 'think I got it”, Derek interrupts quickly. Damn, all of this alcohol is really making him very hot. “Basically everyone's a pervert!”

Stiles nods, grinning, dragging his face against the skin of his forearm.

“Yep. Everyone's a pervert so noone's a pervert.”

Derek wrinkles his nose in thought and snickers, knocking his knee into Stiles', hard.

“So _profound_ , Professor Stilinski”, he snorts and gets a shove in the shoulder in retaliation.

 

*

 

“I think we should go dance”, Stiles suggests about an hour later, after another two rounds of shots.

He's slouched deep in his seat, right leg stretched out between both of Derek's, head resting on the back of the chair.

Derek vehemently shakes his head. The movement makes him dizzy.

“What, no!”

“Yes!”

“ _No!_ I'm not dancing, Stiles!”

“Come ooon, Derek”, Stiles whines and heaves himself up from his seat, spreading his arms wide once he's upright in a show of his motivation.

Derek crosses his arms across his chest and scowls at Stiles' excited grin. “No.”

“Pleeease, Dere-e-ek”, Stiles pleads, grabbing one of Derek's forearms with both hands and tugging on it. Derek locks his elbows and doesn't budge an inch.

“Guuh, do you have to be so freakishly strong?”, Stiles complains but doesn't stop tugging. “At least act like I have some muscle power, could you? You're making me seem weak.”

Derek risks a glance at Stiles' face and is met with a truly embarrassingly big pout. He sighs inwardly and relaxes his muscles slightly, allowing Stiles to tug one of his arms away from his body.

“Yesss!”, Stiles crows, holding Derek's arm up into the air with both hands like a trophy. Then he starts tugging at it again, trying to get Derek to stand up. “Come ooon, Derek! It'll be fun!”

“I really _really_ can't dance”, Derek sighs, but lets Stiles drag him from his seat, inch by inch.

Stiles pumps a hand in the air in victory, the other still locked tightly around Derek's wrist.

“Don't worry, just move when I move”, Stiles shouts back at him as he begins moving in the direction of the dance floor, writhing with sweating bodies and if Derek lets himself be dragged towards it a lot easier as he processes Stiles' words, that's almost certainly the alcohol talking.

 

As soon as they make it to the edge of the crowd, they get sucked into the mass of moving bodies, hands and hips pushing and pulling at them until they're almost in the center of it, surrounded by sweaty heat and a pounding bass.

When Derek said he can't dance, he really meant he _can't_ dance, _at all_. They haven't even been on the dance floor for a full minute and already he doesn't know where to put his hands or where to look. He feels like he's just being pushed and pulled this way or that by the people surrounding him and it doesn't feel like he's participating at all.

He shoots Stiles a panicked look and gets a quick grin in return. Stiles' lips start moving and as much as Derek loves to watch that mouth for hours on end, it would probably really be helpful right now to be able to put sound to the movements.

“ _What?_ ”, he yells across the roar of the music and points at his ears as well, for good measure.

Stiles gives a short nod and moves closer then, gently shuffling a pretty red-head to the side to get to Derek and puts his mouth right next to Derek's ear, his hands on Derek's shoulders to keep his balance.

“Relax”, he shouts into Derek's ear and slides his hands down Derek's torso, then, until he settles them on Derek's hips. He tips his head back slightly to look at Derek, raising his eyebrows expectantly as he starts moving Derek's hips to the rhythm of the music.

Derek scowls slightly and fixes his eyes on a spot slightly above Stiles' right ear, but slowly gives in to the movement Stiles' hands dictate. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Stiles' face light up and it makes him lean forward, somehow, far enough to mirror their earlier pose and put his lips directly to Stiles' ear.

“It's really loud in here”, he yells into Stiles' ear and as soon as it's out of his mouth he realizes it's a profoundly stupid thing to scream into someone's ear from less than an inch away. He almost wants to take it back, to apologize for it, but then Stiles is nodding eagerly, his hair brushing along Derek's temple and he doesn't feel quite as bad anymore.

Derek doesn't move his head away as they keep moving to the beat of the music and neither does Stiles. As far as Derek is concerned, it's just wasted energy, moving away when there might be something else completely obvious to scream into the other's ear at any moment.

“It's really hot as well!”, Stiles screams then, his breath tickling Derek's ear and Derek can't help but grin dumbly into the crowd of strangers surrounding them.

They keep swaying to the music for what feels like hours, a tad slower than everyone else around them and it makes Derek realize they've never once changed tempo since they started dancing, no matter which song was playing. Stiles is also no longer guiding Derek through the movements, his hands resting on Derek's hips without applying any pressure now. They're lying perfectly still against the material of Derek's shirt, Stiles' thumbs just touching the top of Derek's hipbones, almost as if Stiles was afraid of alerting Derek to their continued presence on his body by moving a muscle.

The thought makes Derek realize his own arms are still just hanging limply by his side and blood floods his cheeks at the mental image of how completely stupid he must look.

He raises his arms slowly, his hands fluttering indecisively as he contemplates the safest spot to put them and, ultimately settling on Stiles' upper arms, tentatively curls them around his biceps. There's a small puff of air against Derek's cheek and then Stiles' hands are squeezing Derek's hips gently, making heat settle in the pit of his stomach. Derek counts it as a definite win.

It's almost overwhelming - he's never touched this much of Stiles all at once and it's giving Derek a heady rush, almost making him dizzy with it. His heart is hammering away in his throat and he feels like he hasn't had a drop to drink in years, his mouth is so dry, but it's still the best he's felt in ages. He doesn't want it to stop, ever.

Lucky for him, Stiles doesn't seem to be in a hurry to put a stop to any of this either, instead leaning his head just a fraction of an inch to the right, just enough to put his cheek right against Derek's with the smallest amount of pressure.

Derek loses himself in the feeling of Stiles' stubble catching, dragging, scraping across his own, his breath hitching as a ragged exhale of air hits his ear, hot and moist.

He relaxes his hands slightly and stops fighting the pull of gravity, letting them slide down Stiles' arms slowly. He's too far gone on alcohol and hormones and Stiles to care much anymore; if Stiles wants him to stop, he's going to have to say so, but until he does, Derek is going to get as much out of this as humanly possible. As soon as he's thought it, he can feel his body relax into their near-embrace, his body swaying towards Stiles on each exhale of breath, chests just shy of touching.

His hands are loosely circling Stiles' wrists now, barely holding on, and Derek extends his left ring finger slightly, pushing the tip of it into the palm of Stiles' hand just so and it's almost like he's just given some kind of unspoken permission, because Stiles lets go of Derek's hip almost instantly, sliding his hand up across Derek's palm and intertwining their fingers slowly, one by one.

Derek knows his palms have just started sweating profusely, even if he can't really feel it through the haze of alcohol and pheromones, because, let's be honest, Derek has long ago come to terms with the fact that his body acts like a thirteen year old on a sugar high when it comes to Stiles and they're legitimately _holding hands_ for the very first time - there's just no way they haven't started sweating. Stiles doesn't seem to mind, though, because he squeezes Derek's hands tightly and starts drawing little circles on the back of Derek's hand with the pad of his thumb and there's no space left in Derek's brain for anything else for a long while after that.

They keep swaying, way too slow, and Stiles uses their joined hands to tug Derek closer, until their chest are touching, sliding against each other with every breath they take and Derek doesn't care that they must look ridiculous; doesn't care at all and slides his free hand into Stiles' decisively, linking their finger together and squeezing tight. There's movement against his cheek as Stiles smiles and it makes Derek break out in a grin as well, turning his head slightly to press the edge of it into Stiles' cheek and Stiles squeezes both his hands tightly in response.

Suddenly, with startling clarity, Derek feels like there's purpose in every tiny movement now, every twitch of their fingers, every scrape of their cheeks against each other, every intake of breath and his heart thuds heavily, almost painfully as he lets himself believe, for the first time, that this might actually be leading somewhere.

Stiles turns his nose into Derek's cheek, nuzzling, exhaling a shuddering breath into his skin, turning it hot and then cool and damp the next second and Derek – Derek _wants_.

He wants so much that he can't breathe with it, can't feel his toes or hear anything other than his own heartbeat thundering away in his ears and Stiles just keeps nuzzling, sliding his nose against Derek's cheek and retracting slowly, until he's almost at the corner of Derek's mouth.

He stops there, with his nose smashed into Derek's cheek and his mouth half-open on his skin, breathing against him and Derek wants to keep this, bottle the moment up and keep it forever, because it's so full of promise and hope and all of the good things yet to come and none of the bad. It's prefect and it's lovely and it's everything Derek ever wished for and still not nearly enough.

He gives Stiles' hands an encouraging squeeze and a little tug, and just like that, Stiles is smiling against his skin and sliding around until their foreheads are pressed together and they're panting against each other's mouths, Stiles' lips hovering half an inch from Derek's.

Derek can feel his blood pulsing in his fingertips, heart racing frantically and he opens his eyes a little bit, just to make sure he's not dreaming this all up.

Aside from the occasional strobe light, it's pretty dark in the club and they're way too close to be able to actually focus on anything, but Derek thinks he can still make out the smattering of freckles across Stiles' nose and the shadows that his eyelashes paint across his cheeks where Stiles' eyes are closed. He drinks it in, the feeling of their breaths mingling in the space between them, the anticipation, the dopey grin that has Stiles' lips spread wide and Derek can't help but smile as well, wide enough to make his cheeks hurt.

When he flicks his eyes up again, Stiles' is looking right back at him, eyes open and roaming across Derek's face and it's incredibly intimate, looking each other in the eye when they're so close – so close to each other, so close to _more_.

Derek doesn't think he's ever felt that level of intimacy before, with anyone.

And then Stiles is moving forward and Derek isn't thinking anything anymore.

Their lips meet slowly, hesitantly; touching in slow, careful presses. Stiles' lips are warm and dry against Derek's and Derek lets go of Stiles' hand to slide his arm around Stiles' waist, bringing him closer. Stiles drags his hand up across Derek's torso to curl around the hinge of Derek's jaw, pressing his thumb into his cheek lightly. Derek nips at Stiles' bottom lip experimentally and, without any hesitation, Stiles opens his mouth, their lips sliding across each other more easily, hot and moist and anything else but careful.

The tip of Stiles' tongue swipes across Derek's bottom lip, asking for permission, and Derek presses forward on a groan, crushing their bodies closer together and touching the tip of his tongue to Stiles'. He's rapidly becoming addicted to the taste of Stiles, tongues sliding against each other sensuously and he licks across the roof of Stiles' mouth greedily, trying to get closer. He's breathing harshly through his nose, the lack of air making him dizzy and soon it's all he can hear: Stiles ragged breathing mixing with his own until it's thundering in his ears, more erotic than he thinks such a mundane task should ever be allowed to be.

He crowds in closer, letting go of Stiles' other hand to wind both of his arms around his body and run one of his hands up Stiles' back to card through the soft hairs at the nape of his neck, cradling the back of his head in his hand while they kiss. Stiles makes a low noise in the back of his throat and presses closer, mapping out Derek's mouth with his tongue and pressing one of his thumbs to Derek's pulse point, the other hand low on the small of Derek's back.

They stay like that, pushing and pulling, until someone bumps into Stiles', hard, and their teeth clack together painfully.

“ _Ow_ ”, Stiles giggles, pulling back and touching his front teeth gingerly, probing a little.

He still has one hand on Derek's neck, drawing lazy circles over the thundering heartbeat in his throat and Derek can't help but drink in the sight of him greedily. His cheeks are flushed and his lips are pink and wet, the skin around his mouth and down his chin burning red and Derek thinks he falls in love a little bit more at the sight of him. He's never looked more perfect to him than he does right now, pupils blown and blissed out look on his face, all scratched up from Derek's stubble. Stiles' gaze is focused intently on Derek's mouth, tongue darting out to wet his lower lip and Derek can feel himself swaying closer on instinct, but Stiles takes a step back, smiling.

He lets his hand fall from Derek's neck, sliding down his arm until he can slot his fingers into place between Derek's, holding on tight and tugging slightly.

“Come on”, he breathes into Derek's ear, biting his earlobe gently before he pulls away and starts walking backwards, eyes locked on Derek as he leads them through the bodies on the dance floor and out into the street.

 

The cool night air hits them like a freight train, making them giggle and stumble into each other as they make their way down the alley that's leading away from the club and onto a larger street. They're still holding hands, fingers intertwined, and Stiles uses that to tug Derek against him as he slows down and leans back against the brick wall, looping his arms around Derek's neck.

“Hey”, he whispers softly and uses his arms to bring Derek closer, sliding his nose against Derek's cheek and placing a soft kiss onto his lips.

“Hey”, Derek breathes back and melts into Stiles, hands going to his hips.

They kiss languorously, sharing breath and trading sweet, unhurried kisses. Stiles hums underneath Derek, the vibrations making his lips tingle. He cards his hands through Derek's hair, scratching at his scalp gently.

“Hmm, _Jesus Christ_ , you're driving me _insane_ ”, Stiles murmurs into Derek's mouth, swipes his tongue slowly across Derek's upper lip.

“Am I?”, Derek rumbles, smiling against Stiles' lips and dragging his teeth across Stiles' bottom lip gently, sucking it into his mouth.

“Hnngh, _yes_ , God, with your perfect hands and your cute little ears and your bunny teeth.”

Derek lets go of Stiles' lip and leans back slightly to look him in the eye.

“Bunny teeth?”, he asks, incredulous. “I don't have _bunny teeth_.”

Stiles hums and nods his head vigorously, leaning forward to steal another peck.

“Sure you do”, he murmurs and presses an open-mouthed kiss to the corner of Derek's lips. “They're adorable. Easily one of my favorite things about you, appearance-wise.”

Stiles presses a quick kiss to Derek's upper lip, darting his tongue out to lick at said teeth briefly and Derek shakes his head a little, huffing a laugh.

“Nobody's ever complimented me about my _teeth_ before.”

“Well nobody's ever been me before, have they?”, Stiles asks, grinning cockily and Derek darts forward to kiss that grin, cradling Stiles' face in both of his hands gently. He leans his forehead against Stiles' and lets out a shuddering breath into the space between them, trying to calm his racing heart.

“No one's ever even come close”, he whispers once he doesn't feel like he might puke with the intensity of it, and if Stiles has anything to say to that, it's lost in Derek's mouth on his.

 

Half an hour later, they've made it back to the apartment and they're standing in the kitchen, not within touching distance for the first time since the dance floor, and it's decidedly awkward. It's very quiet in the kitchen, aside from the buzzing in Derek's ears from the pounding bass earlier, quiet enough that he can hear the clicks of their throats as they drink the water Stiles had insisted on before going to bed. They're looking at each other over the rim of their water glasses and it makes Derek's fingers tingle with the desire to touch.

The tension in the room is almost suffocating, constricting Derek's chest until he aches with it, and he's not entirely sure where to go from here. The club had seemed like an alternate universe, somehow, all hopped up on booze and strobe lights and loud music, but _this_.

This is reality.

And that scares the living crap out of Derek, because his heart gives a painful thud in his chest when he looks at Stiles in the harsh light of the overhead lamp, almost bursting with raw affection, and he's not sure he could ever stand living without this again, now.

Stiles finishes his water and puts the glass down onto the counter with a soft thud, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth sloppily. He smiles at Derek, waits until he has put his glass down as well, and holds out his hand.

“Let's go to bed.”

Derek hesitates slightly and Stiles notices, smiling at him fondly.

“Just to sleep, okay? I don't think either of us is in the right mind for anything else at the moment, do you?”

Derek exhales slowly and gives Stiles a small smile, stepping forward and taking his hand.

“Sleeping sounds perfect”, he murmurs into Stiles' hair and kisses his temple softly, twining their fingers and letting Stiles lead the way to Derek's bedroom.

 

As soon as the door has fallen shut behind them, Stiles lets go of Derek's hand and proceeds to rid himself of his jeans and button-up, leaving him in nothing else but his boxer briefs and a plain white shirt. Derek bites his lip in order to stop from laughing, because it's such a _Stiles_ move, trying to avoid any awkward bits by diving head-first into them. Stiles crawls under the covers while Derek chucks his own clothes and turns off the lights.

He holds up the covers, lying down on his back carefully and there's a short moment of hesitation where Derek doesn't know which way to turn. It doesn't last long, thankfully, because as soon as he's settled in, Stiles is crawling half on top of him, arms on either side of Derek's head and one leg inserted snugly between both of Derek's.

Derek feels a surge of fierce gratefulness that at least one of them is bold enough to just do what needs to be done and he sneaks one hand under Stiles' shirt to splay his hand across the smooth skin of his back. He curls his other hand around Stiles' jaw, stroking the light stubble there and bringing his face closer. He presses a chaste, close-mouthed kiss to Stiles' lips before swiping at his bottom lip with his tongue. Stiles opens up easily for him, humming into the kiss.

It's different from their kisses at the club, where they were fast and desperate and clutching at each other to be closer. Here, in the darkness of Derek's bedroom, wrapped up in the comforting heat of each other, their kisses turn slow, languorous, unhurried. They trade sleepy little pecks and caresses for what feels like hours, Derek drawing a pattern into the skin of Stiles' back and Stiles scratching at the little hairs on the nape of Derek's neck until the excitement of the day catches up with them.

Eventually, Derek feels himself slowly dozing off, unable to keep his eyes open any longer and he realizes Stiles' hands have also stopped moving in his hair. They're lying side by side now, legs tangled and foreheads touching, with Stiles' nose smashed into Derek's cheek, snuffling wetly against his skin as he starts to slip into slumber.

Derek strains his neck with great effort, capturing Stiles' lips in a last slow kiss, lips sliding lazily before he sighs contentedly, ready to fall asleep.

There's nothing but the sound of their quiet breathing filling the room for a few minutes and Derek can feel himself slowly slipping under when Stiles' muffled noise brings him back from the brink of sleep.

“Derek? I have to tell you something”, he snuffles and waits for Derek to hum quietly in response before going on. “I did eat your fudge cake.”

Derek huffs a snort of laughter, drawing Stiles closer with the arm around his waist. Stiles snuggles into Derek's chest, nudging his head beneath Derek's chin and sighing contentedly.

“'m sorry. But you were sleeping and it looked _so good_. I'll buy you a new one, promise.”

Derek nuzzles into the top of Stiles' head in response and drops a quick kiss there.

“'s alright”, he mumbles, barely awake, and throws one leg across Stiles' waist to hug him closer.

Stiles burrows into Derek's neck and exhales slowly, hot and moist across Derek's skin and pushes one hand into the sleeve of Derek's shirt, drawing lazy circles on his upper arm and as he's slipping under, Derek thinks, feverishly, that he would want nothing more than to crawl into Stiles' skin and never have to leave.

 

* * *


	6. Chapter 6

Derek wakes to a pounding headache and an empty bed.

Neither of those things are unexpected, exactly, but Derek can't deny that he'd hoped Stiles might stay put long enough for him to get some early morning-cuddles in. He smooths his hand across the pillow beside him; it's long gone cold – no hope for a simple bathroom run, then.

With a groan at his aching muscles, Derek heaves himself out of bed, tugs on a pair of sweatpants and pads out of the room.

Scott greets him in the kitchen, a steaming mug of coffee in front of him on the table.

“Morning, Derek”, he chirps cheerfully as Derek walks past him to grab a mug from the sink and pour himself some coffee as well.

“Mornin'”, Derek grunts, barely suppressing a yawn and sits down across from Scott. “Have you seen Stiles?”

A grin spreads across Scott's face.

“Yeah, he's out buying donuts for breakfast, how awesome is that?”, Scott exclaims, practically bouncing on his feet in excitement.

Derek finds himself smiling along with Scott and holds the cup to his lips to hide it from view.

“Pretty awesome”, he agrees.

“Your night must've been pretty great, huh? He was in a crazy good mood when I saw him just now”, Scott continues. “Like, _scary_ good, even for Stiles.”

“Oh?”, Derek prompts, pressing his grin into the rim of his coffee cup. He can feel his ears turning pink, but he doesn't even care, this is the _best_ way to start the day.

“Yeah. I'm not really surprised, though, he's been like that for days now, weeks even”, Scott goes on, oblivious to the butterflies springing to life in Derek's stomach. “I mean, you've noticed, right?”

“Uh, I don't know?”, Derek asks, shrugging. “Stiles pretty much always seems to be in a good mood, to me.”

“Yeah, but this is different, I'm telling you. I've known him for years and I've only seen him like this a handful of times. You know what that means, right?”, Scott grins and pauses for dramatic effect before going on in a sing-song voice: “There's a guy in the mix!”

Derek almost chokes on his coffee.

He lets Scott thump him on the back a couple of times and takes his time trying to get his breathing back under control, hoping Scott will attribute his burning face to the coughing fit.

“You think so?”, he croaks when he finds his voice again and Scott's answering grin is blinding.

“ _Dude_ , totally. He's been chewing my ear off about how he thinks he's finally getting somewhere with that guy he likes, you know, from his English class or whatever?”

“ _What?_ ”

“Yeah, I've been doing pep talks all week, trying to get him to just ask the guy out already”, Scott confides and beams at Derek, “Guess it finally worked.”

Derek swallows hard against the lump that's forming in his throat and narrows his eyes at Scott, willing his racing heart to calm down.

“Are you sure he was talking about that guy from English?”, he presses and Scott throws him a surprised glance.

“Who else would he be talking about?”

_ME!_ \- a tiny voice in Derek's head screams and he presses his fingernails into the palm of his hands, trying to keep a calm exterior.

“I don't know”, Derek lies and just barely manages to keep his voice from shaking, “but I haven't heard him talk about that dude in _months_...”

Scott throws Derek an incredulous look, eyes narrowed and brows raised.

“Really?”, he asks, disbelieving. “That's weird, 'cause he never shuts up about him to _me_.”

“He doesn't?”

“ _No_. Derek. I've no idea how you could've missed this”, Scott explains, slowly and without taking his eyes off Derek, “but Stiles is like totally in love with the guy. I mean, seriously, I haven't seen him like this in... _ever_ , probably. He wasn't even like this with Lydia.”

Derek feels like the bottom just dropped out of his stomach. He licks his lips, preparing to speak, but there's only silence where his thoughts are supposed to be, only emptiness where the butterflies were in wild disarray just a few moments ago. He feels numb, like he's dreaming, like this isn't really happening to him.

He really, really wishes that were true.

Derek clears his throat, makes one last desperate attempt at stopping this nightmare:

“And you're a hundred percent sure it's that guy from English?”

The fucking dude doesn't even have a _name_ whenever someone talks about him; although, granted, Derek's only ever spoken about him once before, with Stiles and he hadn't asked about a name then. The thought of asking now makes him sick to his stomach.

“Yes I'm sure. If you'd listened to Stiles describe the back of his head in _minute detail_ every single _fucking time_ he came back from a lecture for the past, what? Five months? Trust me, you'd be sure as well.”

Derek feels himself nodding along to what Scott is saying, but it feels strangely like an out of body-experience. He's staring blindly into his coffee cup and he thinks about standing up and going to his room, crawling under the covers and sleeping the day away, but he can't seem to get his feet to start moving.

Of course that's when Stiles gets back, carrying a large box of donuts.

“Hey! I see you've finally decided to join the land of the living again, huh, big guy?” he jokes, beaming at Derek as he sets the box down onto the kitchen table.

Derek feels his throat close up at the easy camaraderie in Stiles' voice and he swallows around it with difficulty.

“I think our dear Derek here is a tiny bit hung-over”, Scott tells Stiles in the loudest stage-whisper of _ever_ and Derek is actually a bit grateful that he won't have to make up an excuse for his less than stellar mood, “He's being extra grumpy this morning.”

“Extra grumpy, huh?”, Stiles asks, quirking an eyebrow at Derek.

Derek grunts in response, pressing the heel of his palm against his eye so he won't have to look at anyone.

“We drank a lot”, he mutters and he can hear Scott snort to his right.

“That we did”, Stiles agrees and then there's the sound of a chair scraping across the floor as Stiles sits down across from Derek.

Derek can feel his toes starting to itch, urging him to run.

“Speaking of...”, Scott asks, “how _was_ your night?”

There's a little lull in the conversation and when Derek slowly lowers his hand to cast a cautious glance at Stiles, Stiles is already staring back at him, lips twisted in a small grin.

“ _So_ great, dude”, Stiles answers, never taking his eyes off Derek's. “Totally awesome. Right, Derek?”

Derek looks away quickly, but he can already feel his face heat up in shame and embarrassment.

Had Stiles ever even given a second thought to how his actions would affect Derek? Had he ever thought about how much he would hurt Derek by giving him hope while telling everybody but him how completely in love he was with someone else?

Derek feels anger at himself surge through him, bringing with it a new wave of blood rushing to his face, because Stiles _had_ told him, way in the beginning, when Derek's crush had still been small enough to be stifled, had told him that he liked someone else. And Derek had been too proud or selfish or masochistic to listen and now here he was - paying for it.

“Uhm”, Derek stutters when it's been silent for too long and he realizes they're waiting for him to speak, “I'm not...uhm. I bet it was, seeing as I can't really remember anything after, like, my fifth shot?”

The lie comes easy, fueled by embarrassment and anger and the need to take back some semblance of control over the situation.

“Dude, how drunk were you?”, Scott chuckles at the same time that Stiles breathes out a soft “What?”

There's silence in the kitchen as Scott looks between Derek and Stiles, confused. Stiles looks like he's one second away from puking, all blood drained from his face and Derek feels his chest tighten uncomfortably at the sight of it.

“You don't remember?” Stiles asks, softly. “Anything?”

His voice goes up at the end of the word, almost a squeak, almost breaking and he slaps a quick hand over his mouth at the sound of it.

Derek shakes his head and forces himself to put as casual an expression on his face as possible.

“Nope. Nothing after, like, midnight? I don't know, it's all a little blurry”, he says and has to look away from Stiles towards the end of it.

His chest hurts. It actually, physically hurts and somewhere, in a distant corner of his mind that's not currently occupied with curling in on itself, he wonders distantly if it's possible to have a heart attack at 27 from sheer emotional stress. He thinks it probably is and suddenly, Derek is met with the overwhelming urge to lie down.

“I'm gonna go lie down again”, he says and stands up slowly, grabbing a donut at random so as not to seem ungrateful. “I don't feel too good.”

It's not even a lie.

He turns away quickly, only catching a brief glance of Stiles when his eyes seek out his face out of pure habit, and as he makes his way to his bedroom, whispers starting up behind him, he can't for the life of him be sure if he imagined the look of betrayal on Stiles' face.

When he gets to his room, all Derek wants to do is curl up under his covers and call his Mum, make her tell him one of her bedtime stories, like she did when Derek was a child and crying over a lost toy or a broken friendship.

He doesn't.

Instead, he throws the covers over his head, curls up in a tight ball and stuffs the donut into his mouth, letting the sweetness tickle his throat and blot out all other sensations for a short, glorious moment.

He pretends to be asleep when his name is called softly through the door a few minutes later, stays curled up and unmoving under his heap of blankets when the door opens softly and someone takes a few tentative steps into the room.

“Derek?”, someone whispers and Derek doesn't even need to hear his voice to know it's Stiles.

Of course it's _fucking_ Stiles. Every cell in Derek's body is screaming at him to go away, to leave him alone, to never speak to him again – to come closer, to lift his covers and curl up next to him and never leave.

He doesn't do any of those things. Stiles hovers, two feet from Derek's bed and Derek doesn't move a muscle.

Stiles leaves, eventually, turns around and closes the door quietly behind him and Derek presses his face into the pillow that still smells faintly of both of them, so hard he can barely breathe with it.

 

* * *

 

He hardly sees Stiles after that.

At first, he thinks it's just that he's scarily good at avoiding Stiles, seeing as he knows his weekly schedule almost as well as his own – and if that's not the wake up call to end all wake up calls that he's in way over his head, Derek doesn't know what is.

After about a week of hiding out at Erica's and staying in his room until he's sure the apartment is empty, Derek realizes there's no need to try to avoid Stiles anymore, because there's no one to avoid.

Stiles doesn't show up for dinner anymore, doesn't play video games with Scott and doesn't fill up the apartment with noise and laughter.

He still sleeps on their couch, sometimes, but only when he's been out too late to make his way back to his own place. Two or three times a week, Derek wakes up to the sounds of his footsteps, unsteadily making their way to the bathroom and stumbling into the kitchen to get a glass of water.

Sometimes Derek lays awake at night, listening to Stiles puttering about the apartment, and imagines himself getting out of bed and walking out the door, joining Stiles on the couch for a late-night chat, as if nothing had ever happened between them.

Sometimes Derek worries about Stiles, because Scott is almost always sleeping peacefully next door on those nights when Stiles comes stumbling through the door and Derek wonders who he spends his nights with, if there's anyone out there who's looking out for him.

Sometimes Derek wants to ask him about it, but Stiles is always gone long before Derek wakes, a lone glass in the kitchen sink the only indicator that he was ever there in the first place.

 

*

 

He doesn't really realize how much it puts a damper on _Scott's_ and his friendship as well, until one day, Scott stops him on his way from the kitchen to his bedroom with his hands on his hips and Derek can't remember the last time they talked for more than two minutes.

“You know it's Stiles' birthday today, right?” Scott says, a challenging expression on his face.

“Yes.”

“He's turning twenty-four.”

“Yes.”

Scott stares at him and Derek folds his arms across his chest, staring right back.

Of course he _fucking_ knows it's Stiles' birthday. Of course he _fucking_ knows Stiles is turning 24. He's been collecting tidbits of information for this day for _months_ , Stiles' favorite flavor of cake frosting, Stiles' favorite beer and brand of nacho cheese, his thoughts on confetti and karaoke and birthday hats, on surprise parties and laid-back family dinners and grand romantic gestures and of course he didn't suddenly _fucking_ forget all of that.

Scott doesn't know any of that, of course, and so he keeps talking at Derek like he doesn't know it's breaking Derek's heart that Scott of all people would think he needed reminding.

“We're having a party for him tonight. At that club you two went to that night before you both got _stupid_ and everything went to _shit_.”

Derek keeps staring at him, expression carefully blank in the face of Scott's anger.

“You just going to stand there and say _nothing_?!” Scott asks, exasperated.

Derek sighs, shrugs his arms a little. “What do you want me to say?”

“Hell, I don't know!”, Scott exclaims, throwing his hands in the air in frustration, “Say you'll come, say you'll talk to him, say you'll _fix whatever the hell is broken_!”

Derek shakes his head slowly, raising his arms in a helpless little aborted movement and the fight goes right out of Scott.

“Look”, he says and offers Derek a small apologetic smile. “I don't know what's going on. And I don't know how to help you, but I know you're both sad and I hate seeing you like that. Please just come to the party.”

Derek is tempted to say yes, if only because he feels guilty that Scott is trapped in the middle of all this but even just the thought of going back there makes him nauseous, let alone the fact that he's pretty sure he's not going to be welcome.

“You know I can't do that. Stiles loves birthday parties. I'm not gonna be the one to ruin his.”

Scott sighs heavily, but gives Derek a curt nod, accepting defeat.

“Okay. I tried”, he says and gives Derek a sad smile. “It's not gonna be the same without you, Derek. You know that, right? Stiles might be mad at you and you two might not like each other at the moment but whatever's going on, he's going to miss having you there tonight.”

Derek highly doubts that, but he nods anyway and gives Scott a wry smile when he reaches out a hand to squeeze Derek's shoulder before turning around and leaving the apartment.

 

*

 

Derek is curled up on the couch, beer in hand and the TV on in the background, when his phone pings where it's resting on the coffee table.

 

From: Erica, 9.33 pm

_Where are you?_

 

Derek reads the message and puts his phone back on the table, face-down.

 

From: Erica, 9.56 pm

_Derek, they're already cutting the cake. Where are you? Why aren't you here yet?_

 

From: Erica, 10.32 pm

_Stiles is really drunk. He just started trying to talk to Boyd about you and you know how uncomfortable Boyd gets. What the hell are you doing?_

 

From: Erica, 10.54 pm

_Where. Are. You?!?_

 

From: Erica, 11.17 pm

_Boyd says to leave you alone, but are you seriously going to miss Stiles' birthday?! What the fuck Derek?_

 

Derek picks up his phone from where it's been pinging away on the coffee table for the past two hours and turns it over in his hands, contemplating whether he has had enough beer to face Erica berating him for not showing up to the party. He really doesn't feel like being guilted into explaining himself to her, but it's not like he can blame her – the only person he's told about what happened with Stiles is Boyd and Boyd, it seems, has managed to keep his mouth shut.

Derek sighs and takes a large drag of his beer, thumbing his text messages open decisively.

He opens a new text once he's read all of it and tries to compose an answer, but everything he writes either comes off as passive-aggressive or pathetically whiny. He exits out of the text and for the next thirty minutes, continues to stare at the TV screen blankly.

The clock above the TV steadily ticks its way towards midnight and Derek feels his eyes drawn towards it more and more as the minutes tick away. At ten minutes to midnight, he gets up and grabs himself another beer from the refrigerator just to give his restless fingers something to do.

When he sits down on the couch again, he grabs his phone and thumbs open a new text message.

 

To: Stiles

_Happy birthday._

 

He waits until it's two minutes to midnight and presses send.

Less than a minute later, his phone vibrates where he's gripping it tightly in his hand and Derek opens the text with his heart in his throat.

 

From: Erica, 11.59 pm

_Stiles just started laughing hysterically at his phone..._

 

From: Erica, 0.01 am

_...and now he's trying to smash it on the dancefloor._

 

From: Erica, 0.01 am

_Any idea what's going on there, Hale?_

 

There's a painful pressure building behind Derek's left eye and he pushes the heel of his hand against it to try and alleviate the pain, exhaling heavily.

He sits there for a minute, listening to the dull background noise of some mindless late night show playing on TV and breathing deeply. Then he gets up, collects his beer bottles and turns off the TV. He weighs his phone in the palm of his hand for a full minute before turning it off resolutely as well. No use staring into the blueish light of the lock-screen all night.

He knows he's not going to get an answer.

 

* * *

 

When he comes back from dinner at Erica and Boyd's five days later, he opens the door to the familiar picture of Stiles sitting on their couch and playing video games.

It's so unexpected that for a short, wild moment, he forgets that this is not something they'd normally do at the moment and he's met with the overwhelming urge to flop down next to Stiles and wrestle the controller from his hand.

He tamps down on the urge quickly before his feet can start moving, which means he's still standing awkwardly with one foot through the door when Stiles notices his presence and turns around, staring at him with huge eyes.

Derek quickly takes two steps into the apartment and pulls the door closed behind him. He shrugs off his jacket and toes off his shoes, padding around the couch on socked feet. He can feel Stiles' eyes on him the whole time and he hates that it can still make his skin tingle all over.

“Hi”, he says once he's leaned against the armchair across from the couch, fidgeting with the his shirt sleeves awkwardly.

Stiles stares at him for a moment with a surprised look on his face and Derek wonders if trying to initiate a conversation was a bad idea. He'd thought it would be less awkward than stepping around Stiles and disappearing into his bedroom without a word, but if Stiles doesn't say something soon, he's not so sure about that anymore.

“Hey”, Stiles says then, pausing the game and shifting around uncomfortably, “Uhm, I'm waiting for Scott, we were going to see a movie...he should've been here half an hour ago, I'm sorry, I can totally go wait somewhere else...”

He trails off uncertainly and Derek hates that Stiles looks so unsure of himself around Derek now, hates it enough that he wants to punch the look off his face, or maybe kiss it away if the world were a better place.

Instead, he shakes his head slowly and gives Stiles something almost resembling a smile.

“It's okay, you can wait here.”

Stiles nods jerkily, once and starts picking at the skin around his fingernails.

It's his chance to escape, Derek knows, but he suddenly hates that Stiles is trying to make this easy for him, because he's never been easy before, with anything and Derek misses it somewhat fiercely.

“So, hey, how did you do on your English exam?”, he voices the first thing that comes into his mind and judging by the confused look that Stiles is throwing him, it's one hell of a non-sequitur. “I mean, I just heard everyone complaining about how much of an asshole Professor Harris is for failing half of the class and I was just wondering...how you did on yours? Or, you don't have to tell me, of course, I was just...curious.”

Smooth.

If possible, Stiles' expression has gotten even more confused while Derek has been fumbling through his explanation, a deep crease forming between Stiles' eyebrows.

“I don't take English.”

It's Derek's turn to be confused, now.

“You don't?”

“No”, Stiles says, very slowly. “How come you thought I did?”

Derek slumps down into the armchair, flailing a little.

“Because you and Scott have been talking about your English class all semester!” he exclaims. “You know, because of that guy in your English class? Ring any bells?”

“Ooooh, I see”, Stiles says, nodding his understanding. “Yeah, no. That's just Scott being Scott. I take Comparative Literature, actually, but he kinda kept forgetting and insisting I took English, so I just went with it after a while. I can see how that would be confusing, though.”

Derek blinks at Stiles, trying to wrap his head around this new piece of information.

“So, in reality, you don't take English?”

“No.”

“You take Comp Lit?”

“Yep.”

“ _I_ take Comp Lit!”, Derek exclaims, because he thinks it's a very relevant fact to this whole conversation.

“You...do?”, Stiles squeaks, laughing nervously. “Wow, that is a surprise. I did not know that.”

“How the hell's that even possible? I've never seen you there!”

“Oh. That I can explain!”, Stiles tells him. “The lecture hall is like all the way across campus from where my criminology classes are? So I'm usually a bit late and like, sit in the last row near the entrance, cause I have to leave early as well to run all the way across campus again. I only take the class for fun anyway, so it's not really a big deal if I miss a few minutes here and there, but yeah, unless you turn around a lot, you probably haven't seen me there.”

Derek ponders on that for a bit, mentally rearranging everything he's ever heard about the class from either Scott or Stiles and he has to admit that it's not very much, given how adamant he was on avoiding the subject of Stiles' crush.

Which reminds him...

“So, wait. Does that mean I'm in the same class as this guy you have a crush on?”, Derek asks, a terrible thought occurring to him. “Do I _know_ him?”

Across from him, Stiles fidgets uncomfortably and knots his fingers together.

“Maybe?”, he squeaks and gives a self-deprecating laugh, a flush spreading its way across his cheekbones.

Oh god, it's probably that guy with the blonde curls and the baby blue eyes that all the girls are always cooing about. Or that muscly one who always wears shirts that are way too tight for him and looks like he spends all of his money on spray tans – that's attractive to some people, right?

“Well, what's he like, maybe I've seen him”, Derek finally makes himself ask.

Reality can't possibly be any worse than what his mind can come up with, he figures.

“Oh, well...He always sits like way in the front, first few rows most of the time and he's very much focused intently on the lecture. He's kind of a nerd that way”, Stiles starts and Derek's heart sinks as he watches a small smile spread across Stiles' face while he talks. “He has this like...awesome rugged nerd thing going for him, you know? Very dark and mysterious but he wears these really soft-looking sweaters that make him seem all cuddly and _god_ , I think he probably needs glasses, because he squints _a lot_ and it scrunches his face up really adorably. Also, he has the _cutest_ eyebrows in the whole wide world. Seriously.”

“How does one even _have_ cute eyebrows?!”, he asks, trying not to sound petulant and failing horribly.

Stiles smiles dreamily, cheeks pink and eyes glazing over. “I have absolutely no idea, but by God does he manage it. _Hmm_.”

“You sound...very smitten”, Derek grits out when Stiles makes no move to add anything or stop smiling anytime soon and the sight makes his stomach turn.

“Oh I am. Believe me.”

That's it then, Derek guesses. At least if he admits defeat now, he might have the chance to walk away with some of his pride still intact.

“And he sounds...nice”, he makes himself say. “Bit weird, maybe.”

Stiles grins at him, chuckling a bit. “Oh yeah, he totally is. In a good way.”

Derek tries hard not to cringe at how disgustingly in love Stiles sounds and thinks longingly of his bed and loads of chocolate truffles.

“Well I hope it works out for you”, he says and mentally pats himself on the back for how sincere he manages to make it sound.

Stiles doesn't seem to think so, though, because his face falls and his eyebrows knot together as soon as Derek is finished talking.

“Yeah, me too”, he snorts, crossing his arms across his chest and sighing heavily. “Unfortunately, he's really quite slow when it comes to certain things like _picking up clues_ , which is why he still doesn't have a damn idea that I'm into him even after _months_ of very obvious flirting on my part and, I gotta tell you...it's fucking exhausting.”

“Oh?”

What, does he expect Derek to give him _relationship advice_ now?

Derek just wants to binge-eat chocolate and marathon old reruns of Full House, is that really too much to ask?

“Yeah”, Stiles sighs and gives Derek a sad, wistful little smile that punches Derek right in the solar plexus, making him breathless with longing. Stiles looks at his phone then, tapping his thumb around on it a little bit, even though Derek is pretty sure the screen is still black. “Scott's not gonna make it, so I'm just gonna...yeah.”

He hooks a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the door and unfolds himself from his seat on the couch, giving Derek a pathetic little wave.

“See you around, Derek”, he mumbles and makes his way to the door without ever looking back, leaving Derek feeling empty and slightly confused as the door slams shut in his wake.

 

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry?


	7. Chapter 7

Derek goes to Comp Lit a week later and very pointedly does not look at the eyebrows of every dude in the first three rows.

It's very distracting, this not-looking and Derek hates himself a little bit for it, because he's missing the majority of what's going on in one of his favorite classes and it's not even like he has any idea where to start looking in the first place. He's pretty sure the _awesome rugged nerd_ look is not even really a thing, after all, and he absolutely draws the line at staring at random dudes long enough to determine whether or not they scrunch up their faces on the regular.

Just – no.

He's sitting in the front row, like he usually does because it makes deciphering Professor Finstock's scribble that much easier, but it's really very unsuited to stealthily checking out people in the rows behind him. He's gotten more than one suspicious look in the past fifteen minutes and he's slowly getting used to the idea of becoming the resident creeper of the class when there's movement at the edge of his vision that catches his eyes.

It's Stiles, of course, which is beyond stupid in and of itself because there are more than ten rows of people between them and Stiles tilting his head _should not_ be able to catch his eyes from that far away.

When Derek lets his gaze slide across to Stiles' face, Stiles is rolling his eyes at Derek, which he can only make out from that distance because Stiles does it very enthusiastically, throwing his whole head into the motion. He stares at Derek for a little while after that, mouth set in a thin line that makes Derek grow hot under the collar of his sweater, before shaking his head pointedly and looking away from him, eyes glued to the front.

Alright, no more creeping his classmates out then. Derek can live with that.

It's not like he even wants to know what rugged nerd looks like anyway.

 

* * *

 

Derek is sleeping soundly when his phone ringing jerks him awake a few days later. He throws a quick look at the blinking numbers on his alarm clock that tell him it's 3 am and lets his head thump back against his pillow, groaning.

He gropes for his phone on the bedside table and swipes across the screen to accept the call without looking at the Caller ID.

“What?”, he growls into the phone.

“Hi, Derek, sorry for waking you”, Scott's voice comes down the line and Derek sits up fast enough to make his head spin a little.

“Everything okay? What's wrong?”

“Nothing's wrong, don't worry”, Scott hastens to assure Derek. “There's just...I need to ask you a favor.”

Derek sinks back into his cushions slowly and grunts into the phone.

“A favor? In the middle of the night? Better make it a good one, McCall.”

Scott laughs a little, slightly nervous-sounding. “I'm...kinda afraid you're not gonna think so.”

“Out with it”, Derek grumbles, patience wearing thin.

“Uhm...it's about Stiles”, he begins cautiously and yep, Derek's probably not going to like this one. “He called me a few minutes ago. I think he's drunk and he's stranded in some kind of residential area and...he wants me to pick him up.”

Derek puts a hand across his eyes and sighs deeply.

“Only you are working the night shift at the animal clinic tonight...”, he provides when Scott doesn't make any move to continue talking.

“Yeah.”

“And so you want _me_ to pick him up.”

“Could you?”, Scott asks, voice pleading. “I mean, I know you're not exactly friends or whatever at the moment, but he sounded really freaked out on the phone...”

“It's fine.”

“...I can totally understand if you don't wanna do it, though, I can call Boyd or Isaac if you want, or maybe...”

“Scott”, Derek interrupts. “It's fine. I'll do it.”

“You sure?”, Scott asks hesitantly.

Derek sighs and sits up, turning on the light to look for something to wear.

“Yes I'm sure. Just because we're not really talking at the moment doesn't mean I don't care about him being okay.”

Scott is quiet for a moment while Derek roots around in his drawers for a pair of sweatpants.

“Thanks, Derek”, he says then. “I owe you one.”

“Nah, man”, Derek snorts. “If anyone owes me anything it's Stiles for getting drunk enough to get lost in a city he's been living in for _years_...”

“Yeah. He's not really been the best version of himself lately”, Scott sighs.

“Tell me about it”, Derek says, trying to tug on his pants with one hand and distantly, he can hear someone talking to Scott on the other end of the line.

“Hey, Derek, I gotta go”, Scott says then. “Just...don't let him insult you too much, okay? He tends to get angry and...you don't deserve it.”

Which is a strange thing to say, Derek thinks, because he's never known Stiles to be anything but a happy - if slightly emotional - drunk, but before he can ask Scott about it, Scott throws him a hasty goodbye and the line goes dead.

Instead, Derek finishes pulling on his sweatpants, throws a hoodie over his shirt and heads out into the night.

 

*

 

As soon as Derek pulls up to the address Scott texted him, he can see that this is indeed a different Stiles than he's used to. They're in a quiet residential area, miles away from the nearest club or bar and Stiles is sitting on the curb in front of a large house, head in his hands and missing a sock.

He looks up at the sound of Derek's car approaching and as soon as Derek steps out into the street, he jumps to his feet, almost toppling over in his haste to get upright.

“What are _you_ doing here?”, he yells at Derek, pointing an accusing finger at him.

At his tone of voice, Derek halts in his approach, leaning back against the hood of his car and crossing his arms.

“Picking you up.”

“I called Scott!!”

“Yes. And then Scott called me because he's on a night shift at the animal clinic...”, Derek explains, rolling his eyes.

“Oh. Right”, Stiles mumbles, tugging the sleeves of his shirt over his fingers. “I forgot.”

“I figured.”

It's a clear, starry night and Derek can feel the cold seeping in through the sleeves of his leather jacket and crosses his arms tighter over his chest. Stiles is looking at the ground, shuffling his feet and only looks up to petulantly tell Derek:

“I still don't want you here.”

Which is not exactly unexpected, but it still gives Derek a sharp pang in the chest to hear Stiles put it into actual words and he takes a deep calming breath before answering.

“No, I got that”, he replies coolly, refusing to back down under Stiles' heated gaze.

They stay like that for a while, locked in a staring match, until Derek slowly starts losing feeling in his toes. The thought of how Stiles must feel, in his too-thin jacket and one sock missing, makes a hot lump of sadness settle deep in his stomach.

How on earth did they get here, he thinks fleetingly, to the point where Stiles would rather freeze his ass off than get in a car with Derek for ten minutes?

“What the hell are you doing, Stiles?” he asks, voice brittle.

The sudden change in tone makes Stiles frown, briefly, before he composes himself again and squares his shoulders in defiance.

“What d'you mean?”

Derek makes a vague gesture to the house behind Stiles where he assumes the lost sock currently resides.

“Getting drunk every other night? Picking up random strangers?”, Derek asks, volume rising slightly. “That's not you!”

There's a slight flush on Stiles' cheeks and Derek thinks he looks embarrassed, for a second, before anger takes over his features, distorting his face.

“Oh and you would know, wouldn't you?”, he yells at Derek, hands balled into fists at his side.

“Yes, I would!”, Derek shouts right back, never mind that they're standing on a quiet street with sleeping houses all around them. “What happened tonight? Why are you sitting out here?”

“Oh, I don't know!”, Stiles screams, throwing his hands into the air wildly. “I guess I just had a _shitty_ night and drank way too much and maybe I just wanted to forget how _fucked up_ everything is right now, just for a little while.”

His voice starts to get shaky towards the end of it and it makes Derek's stomach tighten uncomfortably. Stiles stops there, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides, and stares at the ground in front of him. When he looks up again, a full minute of silence later, his expression has hardened.

“And guess what, Derek?”, Stiles goes on, his voice turning steely. “It worked out perfectly. I somehow just can't seem to remember _anything_ after my first beer. What a _crazily_ convenient black out. _Funny_ how that works out, huh, Derek?”

Derek shifts uncomfortably against the cold metal of the car digging into his lower back. He hates seeing Stiles like this, eyes shining with unshed tears and barely controlled rage, hitting exactly where he knows it will hurt the most. It's nothing like the sarcastic, uncoordinated, funny and kind man he knows and still, he can't help it – his heart swells with overwhelming affection at the sight of him, even like this.

Maybe especially like this.

“Fuck you, Derek!”, Stiles yells, voice wavering slightly when Derek visibly flinches. “You don't get to be all condescending towards me! Not about this!”

Derek swallows heavily around the guilt clogging his throat and making it hard to breathe, because he can hear what Stiles isn't saying, not yet: _Not when all of this is_ your _fault_.

“Get in the car, Stiles”, he finally grits out, nails digging into the palm of his hands to keep the pain at bay.

“You know what? No! _Fuck it_ , you don't get to run away again! Not this time!”

Derek sighs, rubbing a hand across his eyes where he can feel a pressure headache forming.

“I'm not running away”, he says, lowering his hand to look Stiles in the eye. “But I'm not gonna have this conversation out in the cold, with you drunk as fuck and wearing only one sock, alright? Now get in the damn car so I can put your drunk ass the fuck to bed!”

“I hate you!” Stiles spits at him, but despite his words, after a few moments of defiant staring, his shoulders sag and he starts shuffling towards the passenger side of the car anyway, careful to keep his distance from Derek. “God, I hate you so much.”

Derek follows him to the side of the car, mindful to keep his hands to himself even as Stiles stumbles when climbing into his seat.

“I know”, he whispers quietly when he pushes the door closed once Stiles is safely curled up on the passenger seat, his heart clenching painfully as he watches Stiles covertly scrub the back of his hand across his cheeks.

 

The ride back to the apartment is horribly tense. Stiles doesn't say a single word and all Derek can hear in the deafening silence is _I hate you I hate you I hate you_ playing over and over in his mind like a sick version of a broken record.

Somehow, they make it back to the apartment without either of them throwing a single glance in the other's direction and as soon as Derek has fiddled the key into the lock on the apartment door, Stiles is marching around him, disappearing in Scott's bedroom and slamming the door shut behind him.

It's not exactly the easiest night's sleep Derek has ever had.

 

*

 

When Derek walks into the kitchen the next morning, Stiles is already there, sitting at the table with Scott and whispering in hushed tones. At the sight of Derek entering, they fall silent abruptly, watching Derek quietly as he crosses the kitchen to the coffee pot and pours himself a mug.

“You're here. Good”, Scott says when Derek turns back around, cup in hand. “I'm going to go. I'll be at Allison's for the rest of the day.”

Scott scoots back his chair and stands, ignoring the dramatic eyeroll Stiles throws him from across the table.

“Not exactly subtle, bro”, he drawls, raising an eyebrow at Scott.

“I really couldn't care less about subtle”, Scott counters and shrugs his shoulders. “It obviously hasn't worked so far and I really can't be bothered anymore.”

He throws Derek a pointed look that Derek can't even begin to understand and turns to leave the kitchen. He stops once he's only a step away from the door and turns back slowly, fixing them both with a serious stare.

“There better not be any more sad faces when I get back tonight”, he tells them. “I'm serious. Use your words, boys.”

“Did Melissa tell you to say that?”, Stiles quips, the corner of his mouth ticking up into a half-grin.

Scott throws him a disapproving glance.

“You know what? She did. But I don't even care, obviously someone needed to say it. Work this out”, he says and points a finger at each of them in turn. “Your moping is killing my mojo.”

And turns around and leaves.

There's a moment of stunned silence in which Derek, for his part, mostly tries to process that Scott felt the need to talk to his _mother_ about all this and, _oh God_ , does that mean...

“Scott!!”, Stiles yells. “Please tell me your Mom didn't tell my Dad!”

There's the sound of a snort somewhere in the hallway.

“What do you think?!”, Scott shouts back and then there's the sound of footsteps coming closer until Scott pops his head back around the doorframe. “The Sheriff says you're both being stupid and it's not like he's exactly surprised that his son would get himself into a mess like that but he really expected more from you, Derek.”

And with that, he's out the door again, leaving Stiles and Derek staring at the spot where he just stood in horror.

“Shit”, they both say under their breath, perfectly in sync even after weeks of radio silence and they turn to look at each other out of habit.

It's exactly the kind of push Derek needs to shove away from the counter he's been leaning against and sit down in the chair Scott vacated a few minutes ago.

“Wanna tell me what happened last night?”, Derek asks when Stiles doesn't make a move to speak first.

“I don't think that's any of your business, actually”, Stiles grumbles, eyes fixed resolutely on his coffee cup.

“Wow, no, Scott's intervention was totally unnecessary, this is starting off _great_ ”, Derek gripes, throwing Stiles a pointed glance when he looks up briefly.

Stiles exhales slowly and leans back in his chair, shoulders slumping forward and making him look a lot smaller than he actually is. He suddenly looks tired and defeated and he scrubs a hand across his face roughly before starting to talk.

“Nothing happened, really”, he starts, voice soft. “I was drunk and sad and lonely and... then there was this girl from one of my classes and she was nice and pretty and she'd been flirting with me all semester, so I ... went home with her. 'Cause apparently I'm a dick when I'm drunk, because she actually likes me and I was so wasted that I couldn't even remember her name. I didn't even think about any of that in the moment, though. I just wanted to...not feel bad all the time, you know? And then we went back to her place and I...couldn't do it. Couldn't go through with it. Which, of course, only made me more upset, so ... I ran away and then...you showed up. Which didn't exactly help either.”

He throws Derek a sad smile.

“I'm sorry for what I said. I was an asshole”, he adds in a small voice, looking away from Derek.

“Yeah”, Derek says weakly, swallowing against the dryness in his mouth. The silence that follows is uncomfortable and Derek grapples wildly for something – anything - to say, but his mind is still buzzing from what Stiles has told him. There's really nothing he can say to Stiles telling him about his almost hook-up without sounding terribly possessive and, well, he's not about to start making excuses for Stiles being an asshole last night.

Stiles clears his throat roughly and leans forward, putting his elbows on the table and lifting his gaze to fix Derek with determination and Derek's heart stutters in his chest as he realizes that this is the moment they've been building towards for weeks and weeks.

Now that the time has finally come to lay all cards on the table, it almost feels like relief.

 

“Why did you say you don't remember?” Stiles asks, voice small and fragile. “I don't get it. What did I do wrong?”

And that's so heart-wrenching and sad, the way Stiles' voice wavers and his eyes flit around the room aimlessly, that it almost makes Derek forget the betrayal that lead him to say those things in the first place.

Almost.

“Pretty sure you're in love with someone else”, he grits out instead and tries to tune out the voice in his mind that tells him it's too much, too soon. Too close to the heart of the matter.

Stiles laughs, a short, bitter thing that tastes like acid in Derek's throat.

“Pretty sure you're still hung up on your ex and you _don't do casual_...”, Stiles counters, voice icy cold.

“That's...different.”

“How on _earth_ is that any different?!”

“Because none of that matters _anything_ when it comes to you”, Derek exclaims, slightly louder than intended. “You're right: I don't do casual. Ever.”

There's a slightly shocked edge to the surprise visible on Stiles' face and Derek makes himself stop for a second and breathe deeply, because he's pretty sure he's not supposed to be screaming these things.

“But there was _nothing_ casual about any of what we did that night”, he continues, softer this time. “At least not for me.”

And that should be enough to make Stiles realize that he's not the one being wronged here, Derek thinks, but the expression on Stiles' face tells a different story. He has a confused little frown between his eyebrows and his mouth is pursed pensively.

“You're still hung up on your ex though”, he finally says, hesitantly, staring into the depths of his coffee cup like it holds all the answers.

“I never said that”, Derek insists. “I said I wouldn't go to a party with you to pick up some random person because I was still getting over someone. Someone that I had been falling for who was totally in love with someone else. All of that's still true.”

Derek chances a look across the table at Stiles, who is still staring blankly into his mug and looks, for all intents and purposes, like he has stopped breathing.

With sudden clarity, Derek realizes he's never before let himself look at Stiles the way he wanted to, without restraint or fear or shame. Now that he's about to lay his soul out for the world to see, though, he suddenly can't seem to remember any harm in it.

He feels a startlingly overwhelming rush of affection come over him the more he lets himself look, tracing Stiles' cheekbones with his eyes, the bow of his brows, the slant of his eyelashes, the pink of his mouth until he gets dizzy with it. Until Stiles finally looks up into Derek's waiting eyes, his mouth falling open in a surprised little 'o' when Derek doesn't look away.

“You're kind of the only exception to that rule, but only because I'm a true masochist at heart”, Derek finally makes himself say, shrugging one of his shoulders and smiling sadly at Stiles.

“Oh”, Stiles breathes and when he doesn't say anything else for a full minute after that, Derek gives a self-deprecating bitter laugh.

“Yeah, _oh_. So how about we forget any of this ever happened and I promise I won't ever go to Comp Lit and stare at people's eyebrows again”, Derek grits out, concentrating on swirling the last dregs of his coffee around in his mug. “I'm gonna be less creepy, I promise.”

There's a lull in the conversation then and Derek takes Stiles' silence as wordless agreement and gives a short nod in his direction before getting up from his seat. He puts his cup in the sink and is just about to announce that he's going back to bed when there's a sharp intake of breath behind him.

“Did you find anyone?”

Keeping his back to the kitchen, Derek grunts out a “Hm?”, opening the tap to rinse out his mug painstakingly.

“With cute eyebrows?”

Derek sets his coffee cup down into the sink with a sharp clank and turns around abruptly.

“I'm still not convinced something like that even exists!”, he exclaims and throws his still-dripping hands into the air, spraying himself and the kitchen floor with soapy water. “So, no. I still have no idea who you're talking about.”

At the sudden rise in volume, Stiles springs up as well, leaning back against the kitchen table and crossing his arms across his chest in a huff.

“ _God_ , Derek! You're so much slower than you look!”, he declares. “Which is pretty non-slow, if you ask me, which you would know if you _looked into a damn mirror_ once in a while! And don't you dare tell me you don't have one of those, 'cause I've seen you with bed head enough times to know your hair doesn't just do _that_ naturally.”

He does a vague hand motion towards Derek's head that has Derek raising his hand to pat at his hair automatically, causing Stiles to roll his eyes at him.

“Or maybe it's just that your _half blind_ 'cause I swear to god, you squint at the board so hard in Comp Lit that it's giving me _sympathy headaches_! No wonder you always sit in the first fucking row, you studious little _nerd_ , with your _stupid eyebrows_ and your cuddly sweaters and your _teeth_ and your _everything_!”, Stiles shouts, red in the face and breathing heavily. “So yeah, how about you look in the _damn mirror_ , Derek!”

Derek stares at Stiles, face flushed and chest heaving, and for the first time in his life his mind is a complete blank. He can't think of a single thing to say – hell, he can't even think of a single think to _feel_ , because _what the hell?_

He needs time to process and regroup, Derek thinks, time away from Stiles' stupid distracting eyes that keep looking at him expectantly, because – by god, it's not every day that one gets a screamed declaration of _feelings_ so laden with insults and backhanded compliments, how is anyone supposed to have the proper skill set to deal with it accordingly?

Derek takes a deep breath and thinks longingly of a glass of water – his mouth is a fucking _desert_ , for God's sake.

“What – you think I need glasses?” he croaks out finally.

His tongue feels like it's too big for his mouth and it's obstructing his wind pipe.

Stiles looks stuck somewhere between a groan and a laugh, eyes bugging and eyebrows pinching together.

“You – wha – that's honestly the _last_ thing I wanted you to take away from all of that”, he stammers, brows approaching his hairline steadily, “but _yeah_ , buddy, sorry to break it to you, but I really think you do. Seriously – Finstock's handwriting might be bad, but it's nowhere near _that_ bad. Just...suck it up, your face'll survive a little bit of plastic.”

“Wh -...that's not why -...You never wear _your_ glasses!” 

“Yeah, _duh_ , but that's a totally different story.” 

“ _How_ is that different?” 

“Because _look at me_! Do you really think I need glasses to make me look even nerdier than I already do?” Stiles insists. “You and your dumb face, on the other hand, will do just fine, trust me.” 

“ _Your_ face does just fine”, Derek mumbles softly, eyes quickly flitting away from Stiles' face when Stiles narrows his eyes at him. 

“ _What?_ ” 

“What?”, Derek echoes dumbly, heat crawling up his neck. Derek briefly considers biting off his own tongue and swallowing it, but scraps the idea pretty instantaneously. 

He's not particularly fond of blood. 

“What did you just say?”, Stiles asks. 

“Nothing.” 

“Uh-huh”, Stiles hums, sounding utterly unconvinced and when Derek lets his gaze flick back to his face, he can see the hint of a smirk tugging at Stiles' lips. 

The hard thud of Derek's heart against his ribs tells him he's missed seeing Stiles smile with a vengeance and it's enough to make him speak again. 

“I said...I'll wear my glasses if you wear yours”, Derek says, the lie rolling off his tongue effortlessly. 

“What, why, so we both look nerdy enough to be seen together?”, Stiles shoots back, brow drawn in confusion. 

“No, you _idiot_ ”, Derek chides him fondly and rolls his eyes at him. “Because you look hot in yours.” 

Stiles gapes at him, unblinking, for a long, horrifying second and then he's blushing so fast that Derek is mildly scared he might pass out from the sudden loss of blood to his brain. It's fascinating to look at, really, the way the flush creeps up his neck and rolls over his cheekbones in bright, uneven blotches, making his lips seem pale in comparison and Derek vows to do it again, as often as possible, even as he feels his own ears turn hot in sympathy. 

Stiles drops his gaze and raises a hand to rub across the back of his neck in embarrassment. 

“ _You're_ an idiot”, he mumbles bashfully in the direction of the floor, but Derek catches the edge of a smile as Stiles turns his flaming face into his shoulder and that's more than enough to make his heart take off in a frantic sprint. 

Derek kind of wants to stay in this moment forever – with Stiles just within arm's reach and the possibilities endless. 

Cautiously, slowly, Derek slides his foot across the kitchen floor and bumps Stiles' toes with his, nestling his big toe into the gap Stiles' sock forms between the first two digits. 

When Stiles raises his eyes at the touch, he finds Derek already watching him, a careful little smile playing on his lips. There's still a splash of color on Stiles' cheeks and it only darkens as they keep staring at each other, the tension thick in the air around them. Stiles' fingers flutter briefly where they're holding onto the edge of the kitchen table loosely and it makes Derek's blood start to boil under his fingertips, makes them tingly and restless in their desire to touch. 

Derek watches, fascinated, as Stiles swallows thickly and pushes off from the table slowly. He keeps holding Derek's gaze and once he's upright, ticks one of his eyebrows up almost imperceptibly in a silent question. Derek's heart flutters in his chest and he gives a tiny nod. Stiles sways into his space almost immediately at the silent permission, one of his hands coming up to touch Derek's elbow – when there's a sharp ring from somewhere near Stiles' hip that jolts them out of the moment abruptly. 

“Ah, shit”, Stiles mutters, shoving a hand into his jeans pocket to produce a phone. He throws a quick glance at the screen and huffs a little laugh. “Sorry. That's just...Scott checking in to make sure we haven't killed each other yet.” 

He gives Derek a wry smile and turns the phone off, throwing it onto the table behind him. Derek tries smiling back, even comes so far as to pick one corner of his mouth up, but his heart's not really in it. 

He's still focused on the phone. Lying on the table in all its new, shiny glory. 

“New phone, huh?” 

Stiles glances over his shoulder briefly, raises an embarrassed hand to his neck as his eyes touch on the phone. 

“Oh. Yeah”, he mumbles, gives a little self-deprecating laugh. “I...uhm...broke mine.” 

Derek looks down at where his toes are no longer touching Stiles, where he can no longer feel Stiles' body heat and wishes longingly that he could have at least that little point of contact back, because whatever else there might be between them, it's not going to magically erase the world of pain they've caused each other in the past weeks. 

“I'm sorry I missed your birthday”, Derek makes himself say when the colors of their socks start to blur together in front of his eyes. 

There's a sharp intake of breath from Stiles and when Derek looks up he has his face buried in his hands, pink cheeks peeking out from between his fingers. 

“Ugh”, his muffled voice comes from behind his hands. “Erica?” 

“Yeah.” 

“I thought so”, Stiles sighs and drops his hands, wringing them together in front of him. “Not exactly my finest hour. I just...I really thought you'd come, you know? And when you didn't, I just...I kinda went a bit crazy. I just missed you so much that night, you don't even know.” 

“I missed you too”, Derek hears himself say, the words punched out of him by guilt and sadness, making them breathless and strangled. “ _All_ the time. I'm sorry for being an ass.” 

Stiles looks up at him, lifts one corner of his mouth in a smile. 

“Yeah, me too”, he says, raking a hand through his hair and sighing out a laugh. “God, we've both been hella stupid, haven't we? It's a wonder we've ever fooled anyone into thinking we were some sort of responsible adults, huh?” 

Derek raises an eyebrow at Stiles, smirks at him. 

“I don't think you've _ever_ really fooled anyone, Stiles”, he says and relishes the sharp pain in his shin when Stiles kicks him for it, digging his toenails in for good measure. 

_This_ is what he's missed, most of all. 

“Shut up, Derek, I'm trying to be serious here”, Stiles grunts around a chocked off laugh, shoves Derek's shoulder lightly. “This mess is beyond ridiculous. Seriously, like how on earth did we get here? I still don't get it.” 

“What, you wanna talk feelings now? Really?”, Derek asks, shuddering for extra emphasis. 

“Hell yeah. Use your words, remember?” 

Stiles tilts his head, looks at Derek expectantly and makes a _go on, I'm listening_ gesture with his hands. Derek sighs, dropping his head in defeat. 

“Ugh, fine”, he grits out and wills his blood to stop rushing to the goddamn tips of his ears, “But I want you to know I'm way too sober for this.” 

Stiles snorts, “I know. Why do you think I've gotten the both of us drunk so much?” 

Derek throws him an incredulous look and clutches his chest, deeply wounded. “You _traitor_.” 

“Yeah, yeah”, Stiles waves Derek's indignation away, “On with the story, my dear.” 

And that's a _joke_ , god-dammit, it's not supposed to make him feel like he's won the fucking lottery, Derek tries telling his traitorous heart that's pumping blood into all the wrong directions, to no avail. 

“Fine. I – when you – that morning”, Derek starts, stammering pathetically and pushes his face into his hand in embarrassment, mumbling into his palm as he pushes the words out with difficulty: “You were gone when I woke up and Scott was in the kitchen and he told me you were in love with that stupid English guy and -” 

“You do know _you're_ that stupid English guy now, right?” 

“- _yes_ , damn-it, Stiles -” 

“Just checking.” 

“- _and he told me you were in love with the English guy_ , stop interrupting, for God's sake, and I asked him a hundred times if he was sure it wasn't someone else and he was and I was so – so _hurt_ , so fucking _hurt_ that you'd kiss me like that and love someone else at the same time”, Derek grits out, finally, one hand gripping the kitchen counter and the other one still hiding his face as he tries to calm his breathing down. 

“My turn now, right?”, Stiles asks, moving his head closer so he can peek at Derek through his fingers. 

Derek gives a tight nod, not moving his hand. 

“Alright, cool. Derek, that's by far the _stupidest_ thing I've ever heard you say. Ever. And you're supposed to be the smart one here, remember?” Stiles says, throwing his arms out and gesticulating wildly. 

Derek lowers his hands, finally, to stare at Stiles open-mouthed and shocked. 

“I'm not _supp_ -” 

“Yeah, you are”, Stiles insists and steps forward so he can jab a bruising finger into Derek's sternum. “God, you don't even know, do you? I'm so fucking _gone_ on you, I've been gone on you for _months_ and you think I'm off somewhere loving someone else? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my entire life. I was so unbelievably jealous when you told me about your ex, I was so fucking _angry_ that a person who wasn't even in your life anymore could have a hold on your heart so tight that it didn't even let you want to _try_ that even fucking _Jackson_ could see it!” 

Stiles breaks off suddenly, breathing heavily and slumps back against the table with his cheeks so prettily flushed that Derek just _has_ to step forward and brush his knuckles against them. Stiles goes unnaturally still at the first touch of Derek's fingers against his smooth, heated skin and lets out a shaky little breath of air. Derek shuffles closer until his feet are slotted in between Stiles' and he lets his hand drop away from Stiles face, sliding down his arm until he can ghost the tips of his fingers lightly across the back of Stiles' hand. Stiles' arm twitches against his, once, before he turns his hand over resolutely, sliding his fingers against Derek's, his nails raking across the palm of Derek's hand briefly before slotting in between Derek's fingers, twining their hands tightly. 

“You sure do have a habit of insulting me while telling me I'm actually pretty cool, you know that, right?” Derek teases, smiling down at their intertwined hands. 

“Shut up”, Stiles tells him fondly and starts to draw circles on the back of Derek's hand with his thumb. “It's how I even out the sappiness.” 

“I figured”, Derek hums, uses their joined hands to tug himself closer, until he's standing between Stile's legs where he's leaning against the kitchen table, their chests just shy of touching. “You shouldn't have been. Jealous, I mean.” 

“No?”, Stiles asks, smiling, and brings his free hand up to rest on Derek's hip and reel him in even closer, tipping his head up until their faces are inches apart, breathing the same air. 

“No”, Derek breathes, cups a hand around Stiles' jaw and swipes his thumb across a slightly pink cheekbone, “No one's ever even come close to you.” 

Stiles huffs out a laugh into the space between them, his breath sweet and hot on Derek's lips and Derek tips forward slightly to push the tip of his nose into Stiles' cheek, inhaling deeply before pressing a soft kiss to the corner of his lips. 

“You remember that, huh?”, Stiles asks, breathless and quiet, his hand clenching and unclenching against Derek's hip. 

“I remember”, Derek whispers softly and nudges closer to Stiles' mouth, rubs their noses together and exhales across Stiles' lips shakily. “ _Everything_.” 

A needy sound escapes Stiles' mouth and his hand grapples against Derek's side, clutching desperately before he surges forward, closing the distance between them and kissing Derek, sliding his bottom lip right in between Derek's. 

Derek kisses back hungrily, slides his hand around to card through the hair at the nape of Stiles' neck and touches the tip of his tongue to the corner of Stiles' lips. Stiles opens up willingly, slides his tongue against Derek's teasingly, tangles them together again and again until all Derek can taste is Stiles, every intake of breath, every sound, every touch of his fingers is _Stiles_. 

Somewhere between kissing and licking and nipping, Stiles' hands have found their way under Derek's shirt, his fingers mapping out the broad lines of Derek's back, setting his skin alight under their touch and it's not long until Derek retaliates in kind, bunching Stiles shirt up under his hands and slipping underneath. 

Stiles squirms suddenly, his mouth turning into a grin under Derek's lips and a chocked off giggle escapes his throat. He takes one of his hands off Derek's neck and shoves at where Derek's hands are tickling him until Derek relents with a big smile on his lips. 

It makes kissing difficult, more teeth clacking than anything else and for a moment they just breathe against each other until Stiles' giggles subside. He kisses the edge of Derek's grin then, licks at where his lips are still stretched tight and his teeth are showing. He slides his hands up and around Derek's neck so he can stroke his thumbs along the hinge of his jaw, hums against his lips when Derek's grin relaxes and he kisses back, their caresses turning slow and unhurried. 

Derek noses into Stiles' cheek, breathes in deeply and relishes in the smooth slip and slide of their lips, kisses Stiles slow and reverently, like they're the only two people in the world, like they have all the time they want, like they never have to stop. 

Derek kisses Stiles like a question, an answer, a declaration. 

Stiles presses a _yes_ into his skin with every touch of his fingers and kisses him back like he means it. 

* * * 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's basically, almost the end of it.  
> If all the schmoop and sappiness haven't made you want to hurl yet, there'll be more of that coming your way in an epilogue somewhere in the near future ;)  
> Gah, this one was hard, I hope you like it!


	8. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, here's the epilogue - and I think this might just be one of the sappiest things I've ever written.  
> Proceed at your own risk ;)

_**4 years later** _

 

It's Saturday morning and Derek is standing in the kitchen, making pancakes.

It's been one of his favorite things to do on weekends since they moved back to Beacon Hills two years ago, into an apartment that's slightly on the small side but with large, sprawling windows that let the sun sweep across the kitchen tiles and tickle his bare toes.

It's almost meditative, listening to the quiet that has slowly crept back into their lives, flipping pancake after pancake and waiting for the tell-tale sounds of Stiles waking up.

He can hear it now, the soft patter of bare feet on hardwood floors, the occasional crash and subsequent swearing on Stiles' way to the bathroom, the flush of the toilet and the click of a door.

He's sprinkling chocolate chips onto the slightly thickened batter in the pan when two arms wind around him from behind, one sliding up his chest to lay above his heart and the other coming to rest low on his abdomen.

Stiles' skin is still sleep-warm as he nuzzles his face into Derek's neck, pressing a soft kiss to the knobs of his spine.

“Morning”, Derek says softly and smiles at the low grumble he gets in response.

He finishes sprinkling the chocolate and wipes his hand on the apron he got for Christmas from Laura's daughter last year before sliding it along the arm resting across his stomach, fitting his fingers in between Stiles'.

Stiles gives his hand an approving little squeeze and hooks his chin across Derek's shoulder to get a look at the proceedings in front of him.

“What'cha doing?”, Stiles asks, voice still gravelly with sleep.

“Making pancakes.”

“Hmm. _Chocolate pancakes_ , you mean”, Stiles corrects softly, pointing at the pile of chocolate chips almost accusingly.

“Yes, Captain Obvious. Problem?”

Stiles hums contemplatively, the vibrations of his throat tickling the side of Derek's neck.

“Well ... you never make _me_ chocolate pancakes”, Stiles pouts, sighing dramatically into Derek's skin for effect.

“Stop complaining, that's not even true. I make you chocolate pancakes plenty of times. _Way_ too often, probably. Supposed to be adults here, remember?”

“Pfft. Adults-schmadults. My dad's like mid-fifties and he still likes chocolate chip pancakes, so...”

“Yeah and who's always forbidding him from having those, huh?”

“Wh – how dare you! That's not even remotely the same thing! That's so completely different it's like a whole other area code of a thing and you know it!”

“Is not. You're just mad cause you're totally your dad in this scenario”, Derek smirks, grabbing a handful of chocolate chips while Stiles huffs an affronted breath over his skin.

They stand in silence for a minute, Derek arranging the chocolate chips artfully while he can feel Stiles ponder things over against his shoulder until he slaps a victorious hand against Derek's chest, making him scatter the chocolate onto the counter in surprise.

“You're totally only withholding chocolate from me so I'll live a little bit longer! Aw, that's so sweet, my little honeybear, you're such a sap! You totally love me to pieces!” he coos and smacks a wet kiss to the underside of Derek's chin.

“I thought that was the whole point of this living together-crap”, Derek grumbles, waving his spatula around to keep Stiles' attention off the rapidly heating skin of his neck.

“Your ability to sweet-talk never fails to amaze me, baby”, Stiles says and stretches up to trace his tongue lightly along the burning shell of Derek's ear.

And that doesn't exactly help with the rush of blood to Derek's face, especially considering how carried away Derek _knows_ Stiles can get when it comes to his ears and he clears his throat and flips the pancakes to redirect the conversation.

“So I talked to your dad earlier”, he says in what he hopes counts as a conversational tone, “and he wants us to stay after lunch tomorrow so I can have a quick look at Melissa's car for him.”

Stiles lets go of Derek's ear almost immediately and drops back down to his normal height.

“Oh?” he makes, the picture of innocence. “Is there something wrong with the car?”

“Oh, don't even. Melissa's car is just fine, I saw her at the supermarket yesterday, stop acting all surprised”, Derek tells him and rolls his eyes at the baking pancakes. “I know what you're doing, you realize that, right? You're _really_ not as subtle as you think.”

“Well there's nothing to be subtle about if I'm not _doing_ anything, is there now?”

“ _Please_ ”, Derek snorts and slides a new batch of pancakes onto the growing pile. “Your dad and you are totally conspiring against me to get me away from work. I know how it looks, I've seen it before.”

Stiles huffs a long sigh and deflates against Derek, body going limp and heavy where he's propped up against his back.

“I just...you've only come to bed before 2 am _once_ this week!” he whines and squeezes his arms tighter around Derek's torso as if to make up for all the times Derek wasn't there when Stiles fell asleep. “I seriously can't fucking wait for when _you're_ the sleazy old bastard of a professor who lets other people do all his boring dirty work for him...”

“Thanks”, Derek interjects, sarcastically.

“You know what I mean”, Stiles grumbles and burrows his chin deeper into the flesh of Derek's shoulder. “I just don't like watching you wear yourself thin, that's all.”

“I know”, Derek sighs. “Which is why I told your dad I'll change Melissa's tires as well, while I'm at it, I've been meaning to do that for weeks anyway.”

“Yeah?”, Stiles asks and the hopeful tone in his voice makes Derek feel guilty for all the times he's been buried in papers and books and grading the last few weeks. “That'll probably take a while, right?”

“Your dad says it shouldn't be a problem if we have to stay for dinner.”

“Ugh, you're the absolute best”, Stiles sighs, hugs Derek hard enough that his breath is punched out of him for a second.

“Yeah, well, thanks for looking out for me, I guess”, Derek says awkwardly, barely suppressing the urge to lift an embarrassed hand to his neck.

They're silent for a while, then, enjoying the easy comfort of a lazy Saturday morning, Derek baking methodically and Stiles pressing the occasional kiss to the side of Derek's neck, relaxed and soft-edged against his back.

Derek is just putting the finishing touches on a fresh batch of pancakes when Stiles stops nuzzling into his neck and lifts his head, a short burst of laughter punched out of him.

“Oh my god, you're making _smiley pancakes_!”, Stiles squeaks in glee and points a finger at the pancake Derek slid on top of the pile just then. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

And then he lifts an arm to punch Derek's upper arm playfully.

“Give us poor peasant people a tiny goddamn chance, for fuck's sake. It's not like _you_ need to make smiley pancakes after all.”

“I've no idea what you're talking about”, Derek answers loftily, flipping the pancakes with the utmost care while trying not to grin.

“Oh, come on”, Stiles says, pokes a finger in Derek's ribs. “I know what you're trying to do here and I gotta say: I don't like it. You're just making the rest of us look bad! That little girl already thinks you've hung the moon and the stars and all of the god-damn galaxies – I think it's save to say you've moved beyond having to bribe her with cute food. Me, on the other hand, very much still in bribing-territory...” - a slow smile spreads across his face - “You know what? I think the perfect solution is pretty obvious here, right? Let me take credit for them!”

Derek snorts and lightly hits Stiles fingers with his spatula when he starts to make grabby hands towards the almost finished pancakes.

“Like you need them anymore than I do, with your jokes and doing all the voices in the books and getting to drive a police car, _please_.”

“Well, yeah, but I'm just never gonna be able to braid hair quite like you do”, Stiles quips, pressing the edge of his grin into the skin of Derek's shoulder.

“Shut up.”

“No but I'm serious, though. You know you don't have to do anything like that, right? You're her family, she totally loves you anyway, regardless of whether her food has faces on them or not.”

The way Stiles says it, a little bit proud, a little bit sad, makes Derek's heart clench with affection.

“You're her family, too.”

“Not by blood and flesh.”

“By everything that _matters_ ”, Derek states firmly, tone brooking no argument.

The next thing he knows, Stiles is hugging him hard from behind and starts nuzzling into his shoulder, the scratch of his stubble rough even through the fabric of Derek's shirt. He drags his nose along Derek's neck and up his hairline until he can nip at his earlobe lightly before setting his teeth against the delicate skin of his neck, worrying at it with slightly more force than necessary.

“Stiles, stop that”, Derek groans, fingers clenched around the wooden handle of his spatula. “Don't you dare give me any hickeys, come on, you know I can only tell Ems I've tripped and slammed into the door so many times!”

Stiles whines into his skin, but withdraws his teeth, soothing the angry red with his tongue.

“But...I haven't had a chance to all week! How's anyone supposed to know you're not to be hit on?”

“I _seriously_ doubt there's anyone left in this whole town who doesn't know that”, Derek says, words heavily tinted with accusation.

“That was _one_ time!”

Derek whirls around and brandishes the spatula at Stiles like a pathetic little weapon.

“You made me believe there was a benefit at the station just so you could parade me around in front of your colleagues in a tux!”

“Everyone thought I was making you up when I tried to tell them about your incredibly hot abs!” Stiles cries, flails his hands into the space between them.

“Has it ever crossed your mind to maybe just... _not_ talk about my abs then?”

“What, no, how dare you! _Blasphemy!_ ”

“Your dad laughed at me for an hour, Stiles. _An hour!_ ”, Derek throws back, waves his spatula and flicks little specks of batter and fat onto the kitchen floor.

Stiles rolls his eyes and huffs a little, like Derek is being _oh so unreasonable_.

“My dad didn't _laugh_ at you. He was just...overjoyed with happiness that he gets to be lucky enough to have the world's hottest son-in-...”

Derek raises an expectant eyebrow at Stiles, watches him swallow with difficulty.

“- _training_.”

“Son-in-training?” Derek repeats and doesn't even try to contain his smirk at the way the blood rushes to the surface high on Stiles' cheekbones, making them deliciously flushed.

“Yep.”

“Aw, _honeybear_ , you were gonna say son-in-law, weren't you?”, Derek teases, reaches out a finger to trace the splotches of red on Stiles' skin.

Stiles gives an embarrassed laugh and flicks his eyes away from Derek's. “What, no, of course I wasn't. That would've been a _horribly_ embarrassing Freudian slip. Which is why I sure as hell _did not_ say that.”

Derek hums thoughtfully, lets a slow smile spread across his face and leans forward slightly, enough that he can slide his nose along Stiles' cheekbone slowly.

“Well I don't know”, Derek murmurs against the corner of Stiles' lips and slides their hands together, scratching his nails lightly across the palm of Stiles' hands. “It's not like it'd be the _absolute worst thing in the world_...”

Feeling suddenly bold, Derek traces the tip of his index finger lightly around the bare ring finger on Stiles' left hand and, at the slight hitch in Stiles' breathing, nips gently at his bottom lip until Stiles relaxes against him, a smile curving his lips. He tugs Derek closer with his ring finger hooked around Derek's pointer and presses a soft kiss to the curve of Derek's smile, sliding one hand into Derek's hair and pushing closer to deepen the kiss.  
At the first soft touch of Stiles' tongue to his bottom lip, Derek pushes a hand into the back pocket of Stiles' jeans and draws him closer, until they're pressed together from chest to knee, the warmth of Stiles a familiar comfort against his front. Stiles groans into the kiss, hooking both of his arms around Derek's neck and insinuating one of his legs between Derek's knees to get closer, always closer -

 

\- which is, of course, the exact moment the door bell rings.

 

“Finally, there she is! Let me squish you!”, Stiles exclaims as soon as he's wrenched the door open, holding his arms out in a demanding gesture of _gimme_.

Laura is standing in the doorway, her three year old daughter propped onto her hip and a big diaper bag stuffed to the brim with toys at her feet. She rolls her eyes at Derek over the top of Stiles' head even while she's handing the child off to him readily enough and, when Stiles completely ignores her in favor of cradling her daughter to his chest, mouths a hello at her brother.

“Wow, Emma, you got heavy!”, Stiles says and makes an over-exaggerated motion of dropping her, making Emma burst out in giggles, “I swear I could lift you with my pinky finger just last week! You sure they didn't swap out my favorite god-daughter for someone else's? ”

“You're silly, Uncle Stiles!”, Emma giggles, hooking her little arms around Stiles' neck and sliding her legs around his waist. “Did you forget? I'm your _only_ god-...daughta!”

“Yeah, Uncle Stiles, did you forget?”, Derek teases, coming closer to smooth a hand across Emma's hair. “Come on, Ems, since your Uncle Stiles here seems to have lost all his muscle power since last week, how about your _real_ godfather takes you off his hands for a little while so he can rest his pathetic little arms?”

At Emma's enthusiastic nod, Derek plucks her out of Stiles arms easily, shooting him a big grin when he whines pathetically.

“Hey, no fair! I'm real, too. I'm her godfather-in-law”, Stiles insists, hands on his hips and exaggerated pout on his face that melts into slight embarrassment when Derek grins at him. “Or, uh, honorary. Whatever.”

“Sure”, Derek allows in a placating voice that has Stiles flaring his nostrils at him.

Emma is watching the exchange curiously from where she's climbing around on Derek, one hand holding onto his hair and the other on his shoulder, feet pushing into his hip sharply. Derek keeps a steady arm around her back to keep her from falling, but he knows it's just a matter of time until she'll stop indulging them in wanting to cuddle her and start squirming her way out of his hold and onto the floor.

“Hey, I'll have you know that I've changed a heck of a lot more diapers than you have, mister!” Stiles tells him and pokes a menacing finger into his direction.

“That's probably true. Sorry, bro”, Laura pipes up from where she's been leaning against the door-jamb and two heads whip around at the sound of her voice. It speaks a lot about how used she is to being forgotten by those two that she doesn't even bother rolling her eyes at them.

“Ha!”, Stiles exclaims triumphantly and pumps a fist into the air, showing Derek a row of his teeth.

Derek opens his mouth for a come-back, but before he can even take a breath, Laura is pushing herself off the door-jamb and talking again.

“Oh come on, spare me with your fake little arguments or whatever _that_ is. Don't think I don't know how those end, alright?”, she says and pointedly looks both of them in the eyes. “I know I'm pretty laid back for a mom, but I _really_ draw the line at loud wall S-E-X in front of my child, so...just. Don't. I'm begging you. Keep it in your pants, boys.”

She smirks at the simultaneous color rising in Derek and Stiles' faces and winks at her daughter, who throws confused glances between the three of them.

“Tell you what, Stiles”, Laura goes on before Derek can even try to make his brain function enough to form words again, “You can be the first official god-father for the next one that pops out” - she pats her very flat belly - “and we'll let Derek deal with being honorary or whatever for once.”  
“Wh- are you...?” Stiles stutters, waving one hand at Laura's middle and grabbing onto Derek's upper arm with the other.

Not that Derek would ever admit to it, but he's actually really quite glad for the point of contact, because _huh?_

“What? No. I mean...not yet”, Laura clarifies, smiling at them sweetly. “But that's what you're taking the little one for, right?”

“Ew, Laura, really? So unnecessary”, Derek groans when Laura waggles her eyebrows at them suggestively and buries his face into the soft down of Emma's hair.

Stiles squeezes his arm forcefully, hard enough to bruise, before letting go abruptly and jumping Laura, grabbing onto her shoulders with both hands.

“Yaaay, I'm so happy for you!”, he shrieks into her face gleefully, ignoring her shocked expression and steering her out of the door backwards. “Now what are you still doing here? GO! Get out of here and get yourself knocked up with my future god-daughter, son, baby, whatever, I don't care. Just DO IT! GO!”

He pushes her into the hallway outside their apartment and closes the door into her face and when he turns around to beam at Derek full force, it's so bright and happy that Derek can almost forget for a second that his sister just told him she's essentially been sexiling her child to their house every other Saturday for the better part of the year.

Almost.

 

*

 

Three hours later, Derek is in the kitchen peeling oranges for their afternoon snack, listening to Emma and Stiles deciding on who gets to play which stuffed animal in the living room.

“Wolfie's the baby”, he can hear Emma say very matter-of-factly and Derek can almost see Stiles nodding his head along seriously, because that one's pretty obvious. No matter how old and dirty, Wolfie will always be the baby of the family, even if he's twice as big as every other stuffed animal Emma normally brings along to these things.

“Stiles, you be papa bear.”

“Me?”, Stiles asks, obviously pleased. “Derek, did you hear that? I get to be Papa bear!”

Derek rolls his eyes at the gloating tone as Stiles yells through the open doorway and resigns himself to -

“Derek can be mama bear.”

“You can be mama bear!!”

\- that.

Derek throws the peels into the bin and washes his hands before taking the bowl of orange slices and walking into the living room to face Stiles' gloating face.

Sure enough, it's in full force where Stiles is sitting on the carpet cross-legged and clutching a stuffed bear to his chest, pointing gleefully at the bear that's sitting in Derek's designated spot, pink bow in its hair and all.

_You're a child_ , Derek mouths at Stiles and drops onto the floor, setting Mama bear firmly into his lap.

Emma is on her knees across from them, holding Wolfie and letting her gaze wander over them appraisingly. There's a tiny knit between her eyebrows that tells Derek she's probably not entirely satisfied with the situation yet and he dutifully awaits further instructions.

“No, Uncle Derek you be Papa bear, too”, she decides and gives a pleased nod after another second of contemplation, putting her plush wolf into the middle of their little circle to begin playing.

Stiles and Derek follow suit, putting both bears down next to Wolfie and letting their hands hover over the toys' backs, awaiting Emma's signal to start moving them, but the little girls is staring at Derek's bear, frowning again.

She pushes her little bottom lip out slowly and throws a searching glance at Stiles.

“Is it okay that Papa bear's wearing a pink bow?” she asks, eyes large and serious.

“Absolutely, pumpkin”, Stiles reassures her emphatically, nodding his head for good measure. “If that's what papa bear wants.”

Emma grins and nods, seemingly satisfied enough to begin playing. Stiles nudges one of his toes against Derek's thigh and shoots him a quick grin that Derek can't help but reciprocate.

“Uncle Derek, do you want to wear a pink bow, too?”, Emma asks then, eyes round and apologetic, like she's just realized it would be rude to make Derek play a bear with a bow without offering him one of his own.

“Oh, I'm sure he'd _love to_ ”, Stiles croons before Derek can even open his mouth, winking at him when he shoots Stiles a dark look. “Isn't that right, Uncle Derek?”

The way they're both looking at him with their imploring eyes and big smiles is just unfair, Derek thinks and because there's really nothing he can do about it, he smiles sweetly in Emma's direction and pushes his toenail sharply into Stiles fleshy side at the same time.

Stile's surprised yelp is at least somewhat satisfying.

Until Emma offers one of her very own pink bows, and Stiles leans over to untie it from one of her pigtails and shuffles across the floor toward Derek, brandishing the bow like a shield.

Derek tries his best to glower at Stiles all through the procedure, while Stiles smiles into his face sweetly, carding his fingers through Derek's hair a little more than necessary in search of the perfect spot and conferring with Emma on where exactly to put it, but he finds it's taking him a lot of concentration to not let the look slide right off his face at the slightest distraction.

He's totally losing his grumpy-face, he thinks fleetingly and contemplates mourning it for a while, if only because it would render one of Stiles' preferred nicknames for him kind of moot, but ultimately decides that there are worse things in the world than leading a life that gets less glower-worthy by the day.

“You're so pretty”, Stiles coos when he's finally found a place to stick the bow and sits back on his heels to admire his handiwork, clasping his hands together in front his chest and pretending to swoon.

Derek rolls his eyes a little but does a brief curtsy in Emma's direction when she concurs with Stiles' assessment enthusiastically.

“Now my Wolfie has two daddies”, she sighs happily when everyone's finally settled back into their respective seats, awaiting her orders to start playing. “Just like your babies.”  
Out of the corner of his eye, Derek can see Stiles whipping his head around to stare into the side of Derek's face until Derek turns around a little and catches his gaze. Stiles' eyes are big and round, somewhere between hysterical and scared and his cheeks are flecked with red spots that are quickly expanding and flowing together.

Derek reaches out a hand to grip Stiles' knee soothingly and gives him a quick smile before turning his attention to Emma.

“Stiles and I don't have any babies, sweetie”, he tells her carefully, petting across Wolfie's head slowly.

Emma keeps trying to poke her finger into her wolf's ear, unperturbed by what Derek said and shrugs her shoulders a little.

“Yeah, but Momma says you're gonna. She said it's just a ... manner of times”, she tells them, very matter-of-factly, nodding along to her assessment seriously.

There's a wheezy sort of snort from Stiles and then he grabs Derek's hand that's still resting on his knee, squeezing painfully.

When Derek looks over, he finds Stiles already looking at him, face beet-red and an embarrassed smile tugging at his lips and try as he might, Derek has a really hard time tearing his gaze away.

 

*

 

“Oh my god, Derek, who on earth thought it would be a good idea to give babies those cute little faces, huh?” Stiles demands three hours later when Emma has gone down for her nap and they're watching her sleep. “I mean, that's just cruel, right? How's anyone supposed to ever take their eyes off them when they _look like that?!_ ”

“I think that's kinda the point, actually.”

“Yeah, but. How do parents get anything _done_?”, Stiles goes on and gives a pathetic little whine, leaning more of his weight on Derek and burrowing into his warmth.

Emma is sleeping soundly in her little cot that had taken up semi-permanent residence in the corner of their living room a few months ago, her plush wolf tucked in tightly against her chest. For the past fifteen minutes Derek and Stiles have been sitting on the couch and watching her, Stiles positioned snugly between Derek's spread legs, his back against Derek's front and Derek's arm wound securely around his chest.

“I mean, look at her, she's just so _darn cute!_ ”, Stiles coos, turning his head a little to pout at Derek for good measure.

“I know, I've seen her”, Derek snorts, presses a lingering kiss to Stiles' temple.

“ _Have_ you? Have you really?”, Stiles asks after he's turned his head again to go back to staring at Emma. “'Cause you seem _awfully_ unperturbed in the face of sleeping beauty over there, if you ask me. You sure you didn't forget to put your contacts in this morning? That'd explain a whole lot.”

Derek hooks his chin over Stiles' shoulder and noses into his neck until he finds Stiles' pulse point, setting his lips against the soft skin there and humming noncommittally until Stiles starts to squirm slightly under him.

“Sh, Derek, stop that. Remember what Laura said?”, Stiles hisses softly, “I'm feeling really weird watching our cutie over there while you're making me _think things_.”

Derek huffs a laugh against the skin of Stiles' neck, but stops nuzzling and just lets his lips rest against the fragile skin lightly, enjoying the feeling of Stiles' pulse thrumming underneath.

“God, I want one”, Stiles murmurs softly after a few minutes of comfortable silence, so quiet that Derek almost doesn't hear him.

“What? A baby?” Derek asks against the skin of Stiles' neck and keeps his voice intentionally low, his body intentionally still.

Stiles still jumps slightly at his words, telling Derek exactly how little Stiles intended for his words to be heard by anyone, especially him, probably.

As if on command, Stiles' skin grows hot against the side of Derek's face and his pulse picks up speed, thrumming along frantically against Derek's lips and matching Derek's own racing heart.

“Wh – huh? No, I mean, of course not a _baby_ , I totally meant I want a stuffed wolf, you know, I mean he does look very comfy, don't you think? I mean, it's like way too early for a baby, right? We're still young, right, there's no rush and we haven't really even discussed anything and...no. A baby – that's crazy talk. Yeah. Definitely.”

Derek can't help but swallow heavily at the flip his stomach does at Stiles' embarrassed words and he presses his smile against Stiles' neck until his nervous laughter subsides somewhat, peeks the tip of his tongue against Stiles' pulse point and counts.

“That's crazy. _Right?_ ”, Stiles whispers then, almost inaudible underneath the combined strumming of their heartbeats in Derek's ears, and squeezes a hand around Derek's forearm where it's wrapped around his torso.

 

There's a skip in Stiles' heartbeat and a ring in Derek's pocket and in the split second before Derek breathes his answer onto Stiles' skin, he can't help but feel it's quite unfair, really, that any one person should ever get to be _this happy._

 

* * *

 

_Fin._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it! :)  
> Thanks to everyone who's been reading and kudos-ing and commenting; it means the world to me.  
> I hope you enjoyed this even half as much as I did - it was a blast! :)  
> xx

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly love hearing from you guys (and it's one hell of a motivator), so if there's anything you liked or didn't like, please tell me!  
> Thanks for reading! :)


End file.
